In today's world, we've gotten used to seeing the weather change with little notice — and sometime no notice at all. From flash floods and hurricanes to knowing precisely how ungodly hot it is outside, having a trusty weather app on your side can make all the difference. There are plenty of weather apps available from Google Play, but we've got the best of the bunch for you here!
MinuteCast for the win
Accuweather
Staff pick
Many apps and widgets — including most preloaded manufacturer weather widgets — use Accuweather for the same reason you should: it's dependable and damn accurate. MinuteCast is scarily accurate, and it's hard to leave Accuweather for another weather app without it. The app is smartly laid out, comes with a lovely dark theme option, and is worth your trust when bad weather hits.
Free (in-app purchases) at Google Play
Hyperlocal adaptability
Dark Sky
Dark Sky's claim to fame is "hyperlocal" accuracy that can tell you within minutes of when it's actually going to rain. Another standout feature is a global map view that shows you where the rain (and snow) is worldwide at any given time. Dark Sky also features a dedicated do not disturb mode so you can be assured it won't wake you up in the middle of the night, but if you live in a weather-prone area, I highly advise against it.
Free (in-app purchases) at Google Play
Wonderful widgets
1Weather
A beautiful weather app with a bounty of customization options and a dozen weather widgets that can be customized six ways to Sunday, 1Weather has been one of my long-time favorites. There are very few flaws we've found in our extended use of 1Weather, such as the app not always updating immediately when re-opened, but the app performs well and looks good doing it.
Free (in-app purchases) at Google Play
Clean, dark and handsome
Today Weather
This friendly weather app will greet you by your name and then display weather information from one of the user-selectable sources including AccuWeather, Dark Sky, and Yr.no, a Norwegian forecasting service that can produce more accurate forecasts for many parts of the world that aren't America. If you're looking for a weather app that's black as night and will help you see what's coming on a dark and stormy night, Today Weather is for you.
Pretty and practical
Yahoo Weather
Combining background images pulled from Flickr for most major cities with forecasts and hyperlocal data from Weather Underground's nationwide network of weather stations, Yahoo holds a place in my heart as the prettiest of the weather apps for Android. The layout for Yahoo Weather is nice for checking multiple locations quickly, as you scroll up and down for the data, then scroll side to side to switch between locations.
Professional grade radar
Radarscope
Most weather apps have radar features inside them, but if you need a really good radar app, use what professional meteorologists and storm chasers use: Radarscope. This app has secondary subscriptions within it for the really high-def radar scans and other features, but when they storms are a-blowin', this is the app I've used to watch funnel clouds, tornadoes, and hail cores, even without Pro subscriptions.
Minutecast is addictive
Hyperlocal, hyper-accurate forecasting is something of a misnomer, but it's also something that's invaluable when it works. Accuweather has MinuteCast, which gives you a to-the-minute timeline for the next two hours predicting when rain will start, stop, and how hard it will be. In places where rain can start and stop seemingly at random — like wonderful, thunder-prone Orlando — this kind of feature is ridiculously addictive, and these days before I even start packing my bag to head to the parks, I consult the MinuteCast.
MinuteCast is free on AccuWeather, though Dark Sky has a similar feature if you subscribe to Dark Sky Premium. If your locales are less prone to sudden downpours, you could maybe get by on hourly forecasts, but MinuteCast is a feature I cannot quit.
Notifications matter
When weather is fine notifications from weather apps can be something of a nuisance, but when the weather turns nasty, severe weather alerts are a matter of safety so you need to trust that they'll fire when needed and only when needed. 1Weather allows you to customize your severe notifications meaning that you can get vibrations for watches but sound notifications for warnings — anyone living in Tornado Alley can attest to the usefulness of that distinction — and 1Weather and Accuweather allow you to turn off severe weather notifications for some locations if you keep several locations saved in the app.
Radarscope as a radar-only app does not give push notifications for severe warnings, but does show local and nationwide warnings in the app. Severe weather notifications — and all other notifications — are Premium features in Dark Sky, which is something to be aware of if you intend for the free version of Dark Sky to be your only weather app.
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