I rediscovered this weather app again (for Android and iOS) and am quite amazed that it now has a 4.9 out of 5 rating on the Google app store, and 5m+ downloads just on Android.

Weather forecasting is just never going to be 100% accurate but I do like that this app presents a forecast view from a number of forecasting services so that you can best compare them. The widgets are also the most customisable that I’ve seen with font size adjustments, icon type, and a good selection to choose from. The weather page itself is also customisable to quickly see what you most want to first.

I was pleased to see it does accept, and works fine with, a non-precise location. It is also ad-free and there is an option to share some info, but it is defaulted to off. They work on donations via PayPal for once-off donations (nice to have that option), or monthly via the Android or iOS app stores. The app is Japanese based so hopefully data is safe from the US NSA, but they do state they are not selling data to any 3rd parties. They do seem to be handling privacy according to best practices.

They claim their feature is actually the “wow” weather photos you see, and they also offer a marketplace to sell your own weather photos via their market.

See https://weawow.com/

#technology #weather #weawow

  • Not sure which widget, but I’m assuming the daily forecast? An option is to use the hourly projection widget for a more accurate picture. But yes when a day is party sunny and maybe a little rain, what gets shown for that whole day summary? Possibly they should summarise it better with what is mostly the forecast for the day ie. one hour of rain shows still as mostly cloudy and not rain. It may be worth you suggesting it to them with an option for users to toggle between ANY rain vs MAJORITY of forecast.

    •  hoyland   ( @hoyland@beehaw.org ) 
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      210 months ago

      I guess it’s not actually a widget, it’s a silent notification (that shows current conditions plus hourly if you expand it). The actual hourly forecast in the app is like that too, but since you can see the percentage chance of precipitation, it’s less annoying. I switched from the Norwegian Met Office to the NWS in the hopes Norway was just rubbish at forecasting the US, but it’s the same–it’s how Weawow maps the forecast data to icons.

      I’d take a screenshot, but unbelievably Weawow doesn’t think it’s going to rain today.