12 Best Weather Apps for Small Businesses

Access to weather reports is an important component of our day. We all know how weather affects businesses such as delaying commuters, canceling events, disrupting deliveries, and more – we all need accurate data on weather patterns. Besides this bad weather leads to poor online reviews as reviewers are more inclined to pen negative online reviews on days with bad weather. Thanks to modern technology we now have access to weather reports within our palms thanks to weather apps on our phones. Today rather than relying on regular news broadcasts we can access weather reports 24/7 through our mobile devices.

Choosing the Best Weather App for Small Businesses: Our Methodology

Selecting the right weather app for your small business is essential to ensure you stay informed and prepared for any weather-related challenges that may impact your operations. To assist our readers in finding the best weather apps, we have developed a comprehensive set of criteria, rated on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 signifies the least importance and 5 the highest in our evaluation process:

1. Accuracy of Weather Forecasts
   • Importance: 5
   • The primary function of a weather app is to provide accurate and timely forecasts. We prioritize apps that consistently deliver precise weather information.
2. Real-Time Alerts and Notifications
   • Importance: 5
   • Immediate alerts for severe weather conditions are crucial for safety and planning. Apps with effective real-time notifications are highly valued.
3. User Interface and Usability
   • Importance: 4
   • An intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface is essential for a positive user experience. We look for apps that present information clearly and are user-friendly.
4. Range of Weather Data
   • Importance: 4
   • We evaluate the breadth of data provided, including temperature, humidity, wind speed, and more. Comprehensive data coverage is a key factor in our selection.
5. Customization Options
   • Importance: 3
   • The ability to customize settings, such as units of measurement and specific weather conditions to be alerted about, adds value to the app.
6. Integration with Other Devices and Services
   • Importance: 3
   • Compatibility with other devices, like smartwatches, and integration with other services enhance the overall utility of the weather app.
7. Visual Appeal and Graphics
   • Importance: 2
   • While not as critical as accuracy or alerts, appealing graphics and visualizations make the app more engaging and easier to interpret.
8. Cost and Advertisements
   • Importance: 3
   • We consider the balance between cost (if any) and the presence of advertisements. Free apps with unobtrusive ads are preferred, but value for money is also a key consideration in paid apps.

Our goal is to recommend weather apps that not only provide accurate and timely weather information but also offer a user-friendly and comprehensive weather-tracking experience.

Best Free Weather Apps

There are plenty of free weather apps that offer up-to-date weather forecasts. Here are our best weather apps that are available on the Google Play Store and/or Apple App Store.

1. Weather Channel App

The Weather Channel app comes with a rain radar, storm tracker, and severe weather warnings that help users to prepare for unexpected weather. It offers an accurate daily forecast tracking page that keeps users informed with live rain and precipitation updates by the hour. The Weather Channel premium pro plan offers robust features and comes with a $4.99 monthly subscription.

 Available on: iOS and Android.

2. Clime: NOAA Weather Radar Live

The Clime weather app offers real-time radar images, severe weather alerts, accurate weather forecasts, and more. Its radar overlay shows the areas of rain, snow, and mixed precipitation in high resolution on the interactive map for increased accuracy. Users have the option to customize the app with various choices, including standard, hybrid, and satellite maps to search locations, add them to bookmarks, and receive push notifications whenever there’s a weather alert for the bookmarked location.

Available on: iOS and Android.

3. Accu Weather – Best for Severe Weather Alerts

Accu weather app offers weather forecasts, and real-time precipitation updates including severe weather alerts, temperature, precipitation, and allergy outlooks. Its daily forecasts include rain probability, cloud coverage, wind, live radar, air quality index, snowfall, and even UV index. Its advanced weather radar gives users up to the minute views of storm tracks, snow, rain, ice, temperature changes, and much more

Available on: iOS and Android.

4. Weather Underground

The Weather Underground app offers accurate weather reports and provides forecasts with data points from 250,000+ personal weather stations across the globe. Its interactive map comes with radar, high-resolution satellite imagery, severe weather alerts, and more.

Available on: Weather Underground is available both on iOS and Android.

5. Flowx

Flowx helps users visualize local weather forecasts through weather maps and graphs. With it, users can swipe to customize the forecast animation over time and even choose multiple data layers to display on the map, and easily switch between models. Flowx offers data in terms of precipitation, snow, radar, cloud, temperature, wind, and more.

 Available on: Currently available only on android.

6. Weather Up

Weather Up lets you see layers of weather data right on the map, with upcoming weather patterns data available at a glance.  Its event forecasts let you keep tabs on the weather for upcoming calendar events. In addition, you get hourly and 10-day forecasts; a weather map with free weather radar maps, clouds, widgets to quickly check the weather, and more.

Available on: Currently available only on iOS.

7. Yahoo Weather

Yahoo’s weather app offers the option of 5-day, and 10-day weather information coupled with Flickr photos to match your location, time of day, and current weather conditions. You also get free weather alerts and forecasts on wind, pressure, and the chance of precipitation along with animated sunrise, sunset, wind, and pressure modules. You can even track all your favorite cities and destinations through interactive maps.

 Available on: iOS and Android.

Best Weather Forecast Apps (Paid)

Free weather forecast apps might offer you some of the basic features to monitor the weather. If you are looking for a solution that offers robust features you might want to look towards paid apps where you pay upfront for the app or through subscriptions. Below are some best weather apps that come with subscriptions.

8. Carrot Weather

Carrot weather app’s interface gives users quick access to their current, hourly, and daily forecasts. Users through its customization suite can change layouts, add data points, and more. Or just tap anywhere for more meteorological goodness. With the Carrot Weather app, you get a heads up on incoming precipitation and weather alerts or receive a daily summary of the weather for the upcoming day as well.

Available on: iOS and Android.

Pricing: Carrot comes with a $4.99 a month subscription or a $19.99 annually though a free version is available for you to try.

9. Dark Sky

Dark Sky offers down-to-the-minute weather forecasts and information on your location. It comes with animations that show the path of the storms while also getting notified of severe weather alerts or even creating your own custom notifications covering the next 24 hours for things such as temperature, wind, precipitation, and more.

Available on: Currently available only on iOS.

Pricing: Dark Sky comes with a monthly subscription of $3.99.

10. MyRadar

MyRadar app comes with a fast, easy-to-use weather app that displays animated weather radar around your current location. It offers users a fast snapshot of the weather on the go coup0led with weather and environmentally-related data layers that you can overlay on top of the map. In addition to the data layers, it sends send weather and environmental alerts, including alerts from the National Weather Center, such as Tornado and Severe Weather alerts.

Available on: iOS and Android.

Pricing: Its ads-free version comes with a $3.99 monthly subscription.

11. Weather by Tomorrow

Weather by Tomorrow app offers users access to a robust weather app and useful features. In addition to letting users see standard weather data such as temperature, wind direction, and humidity they also can access air quality, visibility, sunrise and sunset, and more. Users also get By-the-minute, by-the-street forecasts up to three hours ahead in high resolution with weather analysis at 500 meters resolution.

 Available on: iOS and Android.

Pricing: Weather by Tomorrow’s premium plan comes with a $ 2.99 monthly subscription there is also a free version available.

12. YoWindow Weather

YoWindow Weather app offers real-time weather forecasts accompanied by a vivid background that changes based on the user’s local forecasts. It comes with a handy location search and offers the option of over 700 photographs of cities around the world.

Available on: iOS and Android.

Pricing: YoWindow Weather plan comes with a $ 0.99 monthly subscription.

What is the best weather app in the US?

AccuWeather has been considered the best weather app thanks to the accuracy of its forecasts. It comes with all the bells and whistles a weather app might offer and includes details on wind speed, solar ultraviolet radiation (UV) levels, humidity, cloud cover, visibility, and more.

What is the best free weather app for Android?

The Weather Channel app is considered the best free mobile weather app offering accurate weather radar, weather tracker, and severe weather warnings that help users to prepare for unexpected weather. It offers little flashcards that show key data such as precipitation risk and sunset time in a rotating carousel for easy visualization.

Image: Depositphotos

This article, "12 Best Weather Apps for Small Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends