Design your way

Ever find yourself saying “I need a weather app”? At one point, I found myself in the situation of having several weather apps on my phone.

You might be planning a camping trip, scheduling a family picnic, or just trying to figure out if you should grab an umbrella or sunscreen on the way out.

Searching for ‘free weather apps’ in the App store will net you more results than you know what to do with.

There are all kind of iPhone weather apps out there, from elaborate apps featuring radar imagery fit for meteorologists to one weather app that features different pictures of kittens every time you use it.

Here are a few things to remember when trying to pick out the best weather apps for iPhone:

User-created input can be appealing, but it’s not necessarily worth anything or practical use. Many apps offer an option for users to input the local weather to help create a forecast for your immediate area. While this can be very satisfying, turning the iOS weather app into a bit of a game, it isn’t necessarily useful, especially in areas with a low population.
Radar is vital. Forecasts can be iffy and are less than reliable on their own, especially in areas where weather can change quickly, like in the mountains. Up-to-date radar can make a serious difference in your weather-related planning. The best iOS weather apps uses radar updated within the last five minutes. Some give you a moving radar, forecasting the movements of storms over the following 30 minutes to an hour.
You won’t find a good weather app that works offline. Weather data is not cached, since it updates constantly. The best weather apps for iPhone get constant updates with new forecasts and radar imagery. You’re going to need a good network connection to use them.
The best weather apps are not focused only on local weather but also provide a broader picture. A lot of others only look at local weather, but that’s not necessarily the most useful kind of forecast. Regional forecasts can help you figure out the weather past the next few hours.

With these four principles in mind, what is the best weather app? You only have so much space on your iPhone, so it’s important that you pick out the best weather app. Below are some of the highest rated iOS weather apps from the App Store and a brief overview of what might make them work for you.

AccuWeather

The AccuWeather is considered the best weather app by many. It provides a very detailed weather forecast. It has comprehensively detailed weather reports, including temperature, wind speeds, conditions, and dew points. All of this data is updated to the hour.

CARROT Weather

This is a useful app, no doubt, but also offers up a heavy dose of snarky humour with your forecast. CARROT pretends to be a misanthropic artificial intelligence. It will provide mean comments depending on the weather; a hot day can prompt “I hope you get sunburn”, while a cold snap can bring in “Your heating bill is going to bankrupt you”.

It’s always worth a laugh and can be a nice pick-me-up whenever you see it. It has another fun feature, as well. The more you use it, the more secret locations you will unlock, including such exotic locales like Mount Doom or Hoth.

Dark Sky

Dark Sky is the best iPhone weather app for precision accuracy. It is a very useful app for predicting up-to-the-minute changes in weather. Dark Sky was built using forecast.io. It offers a very detailed 24-hour outlook on the weather, as well as a pretty accurate seven day forecast.

You can drag your finger through a timeline to see when storms will come or how long it will be until the day heats up. The app will notify you of any impeding bad weather including snow, rain, or a storms. This is a very accurate app.

Looking to make a quick, 10 minute run to the store but afraid it will rain? Dark Sky can tell you if you have enough time. It also allows for you to report the weather conditions from inside the app for an even more accurate assessment.

Fresh Air

Fresh Air is a minimalist app, providing minute-by-minute weather forecasts, all presented in a line graph. To access all these temperature, precipitation chance, and wind speed graphs, all you need to do is scroll the screen down.

You can set up sever weather warnings, weather forecasts for calendar events, and add in a ‘Today’ widget. You can unlock NOAA radar maps and get rid of the ads with a simple in-app purchase.

Haze

Haze uses animation and a pleas ant audio-visual interface to show current weather information. It offers a five day forecast, sunrise and sunset, wind speed, UV measurements, cloud coverage, high and low temperatures, precipitation data, humidity levels, and atmospheric pressure data.

Hurricane by Red Cross

This is the Red Cross’ hurricane preparedness app, one of the series they have set up for various natural disasters like tornados, wildfires, and earthquakes. This is a great app for anyone living in an area with hurricanes.

It is not an app about current temperatures or day-to-day forecasts, but instead it does send out alerts for hurricanes or high-wind storms.

It includes a flashlight and/or strobe function, can send an alarm for signalling your location, and can send automatic text messages to your friends and family to let them know you are safe.

This app connects directly to NOAA weather reports. It has what amounts to an encyclopaedia of hurricane preparedness, with a lot of information on how to prepare and what to do in a hurricane, as well as what to do in the aftermath.

Met Office Weather

The Met Office Weather app was recently updated and redesigned. It provides a daily forecast, as well as hourly forecasts for the next two days and three-hourly forecasts for the next week. It also has weather warnings, a ‘feels like’ temperature, and a helpful rainfall map.

Meteo Earth

This app displays the weather using a globe or map showing your selection of temperature, precipitation, wind, and more layered over the image. To see what the weather will look like over time, just swipe along the timeline.

You can also set it to run by itself. It may not be the best app to see what the local weather is like for any practical purpose, but it is very neat looking.

MyRadar

MyRadar is a fairly customizable radar app. While you can get all the basic weather data, the app is mainly focused on its radar feature. You can adjust the layers to your needs and toggle various additional information to display on the radar, including temperature or cloud cover.

You can even view an overview of the temperature across the country. You can upload photos of the sky near you, as well as share a picture of radar on social media or through text or email.

NOAAA Radar Pro

Developed by Apalon, the NOAA Radar Pro app has real-time animated radar images over an interactive map. It provides all the detailed weather information you expect from a weather app, to include temperature, wind speed, and future forecasts.

You can set up the app to send you notifications whenever a weather alert is issued, so you can be sure you’re never caught by surprise by events like flood warnings or snow storms. It is compatible with the Apple Watch, so you can get those same alerts on your wrist for easy access.

The Weather Channel

As you might expect, the Weather Channel created its own app. It offers all the basics that go with what could be called the most accurate weather app—daily, hourly, and 15 day forecasts; wind speed; humidity indexes; and a UV index. It presents all this information in a simple, easy-to-use interface.

You can also use this app to learn about any weather-related road conditions, as well as watch forecast videos for your local area. As with its television channel, The Weather Channel app features a collection of small weather-related news stories for a nice overview of both national and local storms, scientific discoveries, and even nature videos.

The Weather Underground

The Weather Underground app offers a highly personalized interfaced. The data this app uses is generated and uploaded from approximately 200,000 personal weather stations run by weather enthusiasts. You can add in your own data by reporting local weather conditions and local hazrds like flash floods or power outages.

You can also customize the details cards, removing hurricanes or tornados if you live in an area that rarely gets them. It also features a real-time report from the nearest weather station to your area. You can also see user-submitted photos, not just from your area, but also from around the world.

RadarScope

RadarScope is an app designed for amateur meteorologists. If offers native data rendering of reflective, velocity, dual-polarization, echo tops, and accumulation from any TWDR and NEXRAD radar in the U.S., Puerto Rico, or Guam.

It also includes lightning alerts, severe weather warnings, and numerous storm trackers. You can also get the Pro version, which includes real-time lighting alerts and extended loops. Any member of the Spotted Network and AllisonHouse can log in using their membership to get exclusive info.

RainAware

RainAware is a “nowcasting” weather app. It offers a 3-hour precision rain forecast. You can set precipitation notifications and it also provides rain forecasts at nearby points of interest.

The backgrounds will change depending on the current weather. Animated radar imagery plays with your location highlighted on the map. There are a few areas of iffy coverage in the western US, but it is largely an excellent weather app.

Solar: Weather

This is a very minimalistic app. It offers a bright and colourful gradient background. The explanations of weather conditions are presented in simple texts alongside the current temperature.

Weather Live

Weather Live is very nice app. It offers real-time weather condition background images. You can get daily, hourly, and 7-day forecasts. Weather Live features a highly customizable display, its more stand out feature. There are four different layouts, some simple and some complex.

If you live somewhere with a lot of rain, you can place the precipitation parameter at the top of the display. If you need to know sunrise, sunset, or moonrise, you can add that in and place it where you would like. The app will provide you with a daily weather report notification every morning on the current weather and how it compared to the day before.

WeatherBug

WeatherBug stands out because it is particularly helpful to those who suffer from allergies. It provides up-to-date assessments of typical allergens, with a daily pollen index of the most likely allergy triggers. It also provides all the typical functions of the best weather apps: daily, hourly, and 10-day forecasts.

It has a really cool home feature to connect to your Honeywell, Nest, or SmartThings hub to analyse and provide a detailed report on your energy consumption.

Even if you don’t opt to use this feature, you can still use the WeatherBug app to calculate your daily costs based on weather conditions, average gas and electric costs, and the settings on your HVAC. A good choice for anyone looking for an app to help them live a more energy neutral lifestyle.

Wild Weather

Wild Weather will add an additional, unique look to all the standard weather and forecast data. All the weather information is paired up with hand-drawn animations of wildlife.

If you’d like more detail, you can simple swipe upwards to get a more detailed forecast for the next 24 hours, as well as a quick 5 day outlook. The illustrated animations change with the time of day, so make sure to check the weather often to see what kinds of animals are on the display.

Yahoo Weather

Yahoo Weather is a professional app, offering up accurate weather forecasts and current conditions. It gives clean, friendly illustrations and animations to display data like wind pressure and precipitation. The app features an interactive map with overlays for rain and snow.

It is a really good looking app. City background images are pulled from a localized library of images from Flickr. Scrolling up triggers a blurring effect to the background that looks very nice. This is one of the best weather apps just for the pleasant aesthetic and presentation of information.

Ending thoughts on iPhone weather apps

These are the best weather apps out there in the App Store. If you like what’s described, go ahead and give it a try. See if it makes your next outdoor outing a hit!

If you liked this article about iPhone weather apps, you should check out these articles as well:

The post Best iPhone Weather Apps With Accurate Forecast appeared first on Design your way.

Source: http://ift.tt/2xUzHAV

Pages

Web Design