There are people that enjoy different types of weather and then there are true weather nerds. If you fall into the latter category, you might be interested to know that you can now be an Idaho storm reporter and all you need is your phone and an app.

First thing you need to do is get an app called mPING. After you get that, the rest is so simple even I understand it. The National Severe Storms Laboratory describe the process.

To use the app, reporters select the type of weather that is occurring, and tap “submit.” The anonymous reports can be submitted as often as every minute.

Here's what happens after you hit that "submit" button:

Weather radars cannot “see” at the ground, so mPING reports are used by the NOAA National Weather Service to fine-tune their forecasts. NSSL uses the data in a variety of ways, including to develop new radar and forecasting technologies and techniques.

It's a very nifty little tool that allows the people that do the storm predictions to have much more data than would normally be available to them.

If you find yourself watching movies like "Twister" and "The Day After Tomorrow" every other week, maybe now it's time for you to be like "Dusty" and embrace the weather nerd within.

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