AccuWeather: Weather Alerts 4+

I chose the AccuWeather App after I found out that my “farmer” sister showed how well it deciphers the ever changing Rocky Mountain weather. I like the feature that allows you to see about 120 minutes ahead if there’s snowfall coming and when there might be a chance to get out of the house and run an errand. It’s been pretty precise too. The sunrise/sunset and moon phases can also be found on the main screen. The main screen is well designed and further investigation of the site is easy to navigate through. It gives you a weekly forecast and if you choose to do so, you can get a 15 day forecast. I haven’t found the longer range forecast to be as accurate though. It might be unrealistic to give a 15 day forecast in our day and age. Even with all our science and gadgets it seems too “far-out” for any prediction. Short videos are available of weather related events. If you DON’T pay the approximately $4 a month, you can’t skip the commercials. They’re pretty short though - 15 seconds- which seems long when you’re waiting for the video. You can also sign up for weather alerts. I use AccuWeather’s site almost daily.

Whatever you do, do not use the future radar. The future radar is not accurate at all. It showed that a thunderstorm would disappear by the time it would hit my area. WRONG. The thunderstorm that is a 5 miles away from my area hits me and brings penny sized hail and flooding rain. Accuweather’s algorithm for using a future radar is terrible. After you get an hour into the future radar mode, it starts broadening out the rain and sometimes exaggerates what you will see. For example, sometimes it says a shower will later turn into a hailstorm but that never happens. Sometimes it will say a thunderstorm will weaken and turn into a shower, but instead it will intensify into a hailstorm. Do not rely on the future radar for anything. All of the other features are pretty accurate. I like how it shows the rain total for the day and the night (could be inaccurate when it comes to spotty thunderstorms). The app is good with only banner ads (at least there is no video ads). I have been using accuweather for 2 years now and I have been satisfied using it, but if you are looking for an accurate future radar I would look somewhere else. Minutecast is very accurate, and I was very impressed when I first saw how accurate it was. This app is one of the first to use a minute by minute system of forecasting and I am very thankful for finding this app on the App Store.

- 2 year AccuWeather user

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I’ve used AccuWeather for a looong, long time. Probably since the iPhone 2. So, essentially forever. I’ve mostly enjoyed it. I wasn’t crazy when the newest design hit, and I still miss the local interaction where you used to be able to report hyper-local conditions, but they fine tuned a few things and I got over it. I never paid to remove ads, because I’m not well off (disabled), didn’t need premium, and I figured the ads probably made them more revenue than a flat fee would anyway. My infinite regrets for giving you guys my eyeball money for all that time is now deeply heartfelt.

Not only are the new Ads **incredibly** intrusive and obnoxious to a degree rarely seen outside of freemium money grab “games” (full page, won’t let you “x” out for periods of time, play loud sounds even when you’re on silent etc) but you also can’t pay a flat fee to get rid of them anymore, and those of us who didn’t pay before aren’t “grandfathered” into anything except advertising. Quite a “screw-you” to those of us who’ve been with you for so long.

I’m disabled… all I want is accurate info that I can see without waiting for a full-screen advertisement to ALLOW me to control my device, so I can do what’s necessary to get my plants/pets/partner safely and comfortably where they need to be when things turn. I guess that’s too big of an ask?