I didn’t mind paying $16.99 for my annual NOAA Clime weather radar app subscription. But in July the price goes up to $69.99. Talk about inflation. I cancelled it this morning out of principle as much as anything. I had just renewed my subscription, so they already got $16.99 out of me for one month’s service.

NOAA is a taxpayer-funded governmental agency with an annual budget of almost $7 billion. Wouldn’t you think there would be a free NOAA app where concerned citizens could get the weather information they’ve already paid for? Why hasn’t one of the 6,773 NOAA scientists invented one?

Where does Easy Tiger Apps, LLC get off raising the price for the NOAA app it “developed” by $50 or 250 percent a year?

I had to find out more, so I turned to my AI friend on the Internet. Here’s what it said:

“Easy Tiger Apps was founded in 2012 in Brooklyn, New York, by two California natives who wanted to experience everything the city has to offer. They have a total of 40 apps, with Clime (that’s the NOAA app) being their top-grossing app and iTranslate Translator being their most downloaded app.

“Additionally, they have a trendy bar and café called ‘Easy Tiger’ in Bangalore, India, where you can enjoy live music and chill with friends.”

Ah, so many questions. So much eye-rolling.

So how did these two young tech hipsters who wanted to experience New York wrangle “permission” from NOAA to establish an app with information provided at taxpayer expense? Do they pay NOAA for the information? Does NOAA get a kickback from subscriptions? Who gave them permission to boost the price? Maybe we should assume that business at the trendy little gathering place in Bangalore has hit a snag and there are creditors and bills to be paid, necessitating a price increase from weather-concerned citizens in the good old USA. My Internet AI friend couldn’t answer those questions.

Sorry to beat that drum and maybe there is a valid reason for the price hike, but the collection of the NOAA weather information was paid for with MY money and now I am being charged exorbitantly for it?

Even though I live in Florida, I am not worried about surviving without the Clime NOAA weather app. I have the friendly weather app on my iPhone. It’s mostly accurate. If I want bigtime hurricane information, there are only two sources I trust . . . and that doesn’t include the Weather Channel.

One is a man named Wayne Sallade, former emergency management director of Charlotte County in Florida. On Facebook, his postings are religiously followed during hurricane season. And as anyone will tell you, his free advice about where to go and when to avoid the big storm is seldom wrong—and often comforting.

The other is my friendly and free Ventusky app from Czechoslovakia. Everyone who lives in Florida should download this app. When forecasters were saying that Hurricane Ian would arrive somewhere near Tampa Bay, Ventusky was telling me that the bad weather was going to be right in my back yard, which happens to be the Intercoastal Waterway near Cayo Costa, Florida, where Ian made landfall.

When I saw that, I told my man we were packing up and heading east, which is what Wayne said to do. Because, as far as I know, the Ventusky has never been wrong. That’s what my friend who recommended it tells me and she’s been through a lot of hurricanes.

So goodbye Easy Tiger and good luck. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m done with you. If all else fails, I’ll simply be looking out my living room window.