Apps That Make Weather More Fun

The east coast has been buzzing about weather this week as temperatures dropped and many of us saw the first snow we've seen this year. It inspired me to check out the current selection of weather apps available in the Apple App Store, and here are a few of my top finds:

Storm by Weather Underground, LLC

This is a new app by internet weather service, Weather Underground. It features a full screen, interactive, high resolution radar map. Users can also view customizable data layers over the map like tropical data and severe weather. When a storm is approaching, users can see it's speed and direction, find out which cities will be affected by it and how much time those cities have to prepare.

Swackett by AGLogic, LLC

It's called the "Different Kind of Weather App" and it definitely is. Swackett makes the weather a little more fun by letting users select characters called "peeps" that appear on the home screen with current weather info that is accurate but not overwhelmingly detailed. It also includes fashion advice on the home screen -- a list of suggested clothing items for the day's conditions. There is a grid navigation that accesses other extra features like "This Day in Weather History" and lifestyle and health advice, including what kinds of activities are best for the day's weather conditions. I found that navigation to be confusing, but otherwise thought this was a cool twist on the everyday weather app.

Weather Puppy by Weather Creative, Inc.

Everything's better with puppies! Nothing too fancy about this app. You just get to look at a cute puppy each time you open it to check the weather. You can choose the puppy on your home screen from the app's 18 themes of puppies Example themes include Glamour, Outdoorsy, Holiday Pups, and Puppy Love. Many are free, but a few are themed for dog-related non-profits and require a small donation to use. Purchase of a paid theme also removes all ads in the app. For $1.99, you can also upload pictures of your own dog.

Effing Weather by Kevin Blakeley 

Of the weather apps I tried, this was my favorite. It's simple but entertaining and offers some options for customization.

The app opens to an uncluttered home screen with a plain blue background. The only content items are current temperature, city and day of week, funny "effing" phrase about the weather, and a list of temperatures for weekdays at the bottom. There are also 2 small icons - a share icon to share current conditions and the "effing" phrase on social networks, and a camera icon, which can be used to customize your background on the home screen with a photo.



Today the phrases i got were:

You can use a toggle in the settings area to turn explicit language on and off - basically changes all the effings to the real deal.

In the "Effing Store" you can buy themed phrase packs.

They also invite users to submit their own phrase ideas and claim to add their favorites to the default message pack.