Another vote for yr.no the Norwegian app. Generally accurate for multiple locations I care about, ad-free, and gratis. The forecasts are also adjusted for current weather conditions so it doesn’t tell fairytales.
The BBC app used to be great but I stopped using it when they switched information providers and the forecasts went generic. Similarly the Apple app, for the locations I care about, seems to return the average of the weather that day for the last 20 years and is mostly useless (no, it’s not mild and sunny, it’s been bucketing down for the last two hours).
Out in “left field” is another weather app I use: “Yr” … it’s Norwegian, and clearly targeted for Europe (only Meteosat satellite images on their web site), but the European global weather model has a finer resolution than that of the US and does better predictions of large scale weather patterns (their hurricane predictions are particularly accurate). I suspect it doesn’t show up much in US usage but it’s quite accurate on local weather too. (Also at Yr).
There’s a lot more to weather forecasting than modeling of course, but a lot of attention was paid to the US model(s) in 2012 when they predicted hurricane Sandy staying out over the Atlantic.
Every time I use the apple weather app I am reminded of the tragedy of their take over of darksky. With darksky forecasts I would get hyper local accuracy. With apple’s app I can’t even get current condition accuracy. Plus, they crippled the mapping which darksky used to provide.
Now I use Apple’s app for basic temperature info and use various sailing / windsurfing apps for accurate weather info
It’s been years since I looked for a better app, and didn’t find one. Generally, I hate using the AppStore so much that I avoid it. Apple’s Weather app is OK if I just want the temperature and a general idea of the forecast. If there is any interesting weather ahead I generally open MyRadar which has evolved into a rather complete weather system over the years. In season, Hurricane Tracker is excellent. On the Mac I just keep a tab open to https://forecast.weather.gov for my location. Simple, but it works for me.
A couple of things that affect my choices: I am a birder and that requires weather awareness. Also, I do not put up with ads.
I have the UK Met Office app saved from years ago when it was first released (along with BBC Weather and Apple Weather), but the Met Office app’s interface is rubbish on the latest iPhones (something out of iOS 4 or something!)… So why do others above recommend it over say the BBC Weather app that uses their data and has a cleaner and up-to-date interface?
I’m stumped on that one.
On a separate note, there’s also other issues with app choices. Those that:
charge a fee or not (one-off or sub)
are aimed a certain country/region, or that cover one region better (often due to data sources used)
are national weather service/institution sourced apps (eg. Met Office, Norwegian Met Institute)
require you to login before using (or just users outside their own region, eg. BBC Weather)
While watching & waiting on Hurricane Idalia, I found Windy to be a fascinating resource. However, the best–and accurate–source for my area was, and still is, weatherman Denis Phillips. He’s with a local TV station, but also has an active FB page where he keeps everyone up to date.
I use WeatherPro which is by MeteoGroup. I like it because I can see the temperature and the wind direction at the same time, Lots of weather apps don’t care about the wind direction but it’s important here in Edinburgh as the east wind off the North Sea brings cold air even on mid-summer.
I have used Weather Underground for a long time. Simple, quick to understand, clean interface without lots of useless “style”. Hourly forecasts, for example, have a lot more information in a clear format. Great for checking on the important stuff–current weather, rainfall totals, hourly forecasts that extend for days, sunrise/sunset, etc. The radar is a bit slow, so for that I use Storm Radar, it has a lightning feature that is useful, and the screens & animations load fast.
There is also a BOM Weather app. Apple weather claims to get data from The Australian BOM. I can’t see anyone else doing a better job than the government, otherwise the government is wasting a lot of money on expensive computers and weather modellers. It is possible that discrepancies are due to update times and also location positions. From the BOM site, I can’t get a forecast for where I am, so I’m not certain how they give me a forecast for where I live. Maybe the closest location, or maybe interpolation.
Dark Sky was by far the best weather app over all others - and I tried most if not all the others. Then Apple bought DS and took all the character out of it, longer to load, not as intuitive, not as reliable as a weather alert, and definitely not as fun. I now have gone back to WeatherUnderground as a backup but still use DS.
I’d dispute that. There are three (that I know of). The first two are as you stipulate. The third category adds a large network of observations from local measuring equipment. While individual stations vary in quality, in aggregate they add depth and timeliness to the observations reported by an app.
Weather Underground is one example. WeatherBug is a second. They use different so-called “hyperlocal” networks.
And as a member of Wunderground (IROUFF2) I’d re-dispute that
As far as I’m aware Wunderground still uses the Unified Model for its forecasting, rather than exclusively relying on data from its stations for its modelling.
And that’s augmented with weather radar.
Thank you Graham, I did not mean to imply that Wunderground is basing forecasts exclusively on local stations. (I’ve been hooked in with them since 1999, and my local station is KCTCHESH21.) They do assert that their proprietary “Best Forecast” product is based on PWS data in addition to cooperative observers, airport data, and balloon observations.
WeatherBug has started including data from Tempest weather stations in their forecast model.
Wunderground’s simplified and somewhat munged-up web site buries this information in the second tab of an “About” landing page.
I had to ask WeatherBug support about their use of PWS data.
But Wunderground clearly states that they believe their proprietary forecast is resting on PWS data, which makes it a third category. In fact (like the keto dog food), PWS is the first ingredient.
