Photo by Holcim

The WeatherAPP is a four-day weather forecast that accounts for air and concrete temperatures, wind speed and humidity.

Concrete contractors should take note. A free, new tool just arrived to make their lives easier. It's a mobile app that instantly displays a four-day forecast to predict whether the weather is right to place concrete.

"In Utah, we have a huge issue with cracking. It's dry and windy, and the humidity is very low," says Mark Sweats, tech services manager at cement and aggregate provider Westroc Inc., Pleasantville Utah. "We use the app to educate our customers."

The WeatherAPP is available for Android, iOS devices and Blackberries. Or it can be accessed from any networked device at weatherapp.us. The website and app predict weather around the world.

"We got requests for [readouts in] Celsius from our customers abroad," says Paul O'Connor, manager of marketing and communications for cement and concrete firm Holcim, Waltham, Mass. The new app includes this feature.

Once a user chooses metric or imperial readouts and selects a location, the app delivers instant evaporation-rate readouts to predict the probability of plastic-shrinkage cracking.

Air temperature, humidity, wind velocity and concrete temperature are the four conditions that best indicate if plastic-shrinkage cracks will develop. Thermo-hygrometers and thermo-anemometers can be used to read these weather signs, but the app does it all automatically, up to four days ahead.

The app does this through an algorithm that accounts for air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and concrete temperature.

"It was a fairly easy algorithm, but no one put it together yet," says O'Connor. "Our goal is to make the lives of our customers easier."

The app is color-coded red, yellow and green so that, at a glance, users can see if conditions are probable for plastic- shrinkage cracking.