Now here’s a raincoat that won’t be missed in a busy street. Cleverhood, a Rhode Island apparel company, turned weather radar graphics into a colorful pattern for its rain gear, and they used data from real storms to make it.
The brand’s Stormy pattern is based on Doppler radar data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of visually intensified weather patterns linked to climate change, the company says. It’s now available on the brand’s $149 Rover Raincape and $129 Anorak jacket.
“We are very design-oriented and environmentally concerned,” Cleverhood founder Susan Mocarski tells Fast Company. “The beauty of Doppler radars intrigued us.” The pixels of the weather radar patterns are rendered big across the jacket and cape as color blocks, and each item comes with a hood and pockets.
Cleverhood looked at storms from the past 10 years and most from the Northeast U.S. to make the pattern, and the pattern was designed so no two garments look the same. The brand says it has plans to do a Stormy Trench next, and maybe a tote bag. The company donates 5% of sales to “organizations that help make streets safe and more walkable,” as Mocarski believes getting out and walking or bicycling in your community gives it a beating heart.
The company’s customers are “primarily people that walk, bike and take public transit as their primary mode of transportation,” Mocarski says, and it shows in some of the rain gear’s bright colorways, like the classic Hello Yellow, or Dazzle, a pattern made of black-and-white stripes. The high-visibility Stormy fits in that same vein.
Weather radar patterns make for visually interesting clothes, but NOAA’s pubic data could one day be private. Like other government agencies under President Donald Trump’s second term, NOAA has faced cuts and layoffs that experts worry are degrading weather forecasts. The agency announced in May it would no longer track climate change-fueled weather disaster costs.
There’s science behind why the weather radar colors looks so good together, as the cool blues and warm reds and oranges are complementary colors. The colors all mean something, of course. Light green represents light rain, which shifts to yellow, orange, red, and purple as the rain gets heavier. If Cleverhood was looking for a standout pattern that won’t be missed, they found it.
