Earth Alerts is a weather program with a difference. It's not about finding out whether it'll be windier than usual this afternoon, or you might have showers tomorrow: instead, it gives you updates on active volcanoes, tsunami reports, cyclones, landslides, forest fires, and plenty of other extreme weather from all around the world.

The program organises this information into three main areas: a Global Overview, United States Overview, and whatever custom locations you might provide. Just glancing at each section gives you a little more information - as we write, for instance, the Global Overview section has one "Tropical Cyclone" alert - and clicking any of these will allow you to drill down for the detail.

There's a great of detail, too. You'll see who issued any warnings or alerts, for instance, and exactly what they say. Maps and satellite images told us more about the cyclone. Our volcano alerts displayed reports, photos, webcam views. And there are all kinds of links to external services, from websites to Google Earth.

The program does also support more regular weather-monitoring tasks, though. Add a location and you can view the current conditions, radar maps, satellite photos and more, as well as a prediction for the next few days. Although even here, there's extra data available. We added Los Angeles as a location, for instance, and were able to view a Hazardous Weather report which warned up of possible rip currents at the beaches, and an upcoming prolonged heat wave.

What's new in 2020.1.120 (see full changelog for more):

- For U.S. locations - bug fixes related to processing issued, effective and expired dates on active NWS alerts