Weather, Air Quality & Radar

For trip-time planning context, see Trip & Itinerary Planning. For broader sensor-aware home dashboards, see related smart-home / IoT pages. For outdoor activity routing, see Hiking & Cycling Routes.

The weather-app category bifurcated in 2024–26: specialist apps (Windy, MyRadar, AccuWeather Pro) for serious decisions, and everything else for the daily glance. Air quality became a first-class concern as wildfire smoke now travels continents.

General forecasts

• ★ ★ Windy — free + paid Premium (~$20/yr); ★ ★ the power-user weather app — interactive map of wind, temp, precip, waves, smoke, multiple model overlays (ECMWF, GFS, ICON), webcams. Free is plenty; Premium adds 1-hour forecast resolution and more layers.
• AccuWeather — free + paid; ad-heavy; MinuteCast (next 60 minutes) is the genuinely useful feature.
• The Weather Channel app — free; US-focused; ad-heavy.
• Apple Weather (Dark Sky-derived) — free; built into iOS; the source for many US users.
• Google Weather — free; built into Pixel; lightweight.
• Carrot Weather — paid (~$20/yr) + free; ★ Apple-platform native, customizable, multiple data sources.

Government / authoritative sources (★ free)

These are the underlying data for almost every commercial weather app — going direct is sometimes faster.

• ★ weather.gov (US NWS) — free; the source for US forecasts; no ads, no fluff.
• ★ Met Office (UK) — free; UK + worldwide.
• Météo-France (France), DWD (Germany), AEMET (Spain), JMA (Japan), BoM (Australia), Environment Canada — free national services.
• NHC / Hurricane Center (US) — free; Atlantic / Eastern Pacific tropical systems.
• JTWC — free; Pacific / Indian Ocean tropical cyclones.
• NOAA / NDBC buoys — free; sea state, swell, water temperature.

Radar / nowcasting

• MyRadar — free + paid Pro; ★ for animated radar and lightning detection.
• RadarScope — paid (~$10 one-time, $10/yr Pro) — ★ for severe-weather chasers; raw NEXRAD products.
• Windy radar layer — included.
• RAIN ALARM — free + paid; specifically rain-in-the-next-90-minutes alerts.

Marine / surf / swell

• ★ Windy — wave heights, period, direction.
• Surfline — paid + free; surf-specific with cams.
• Magicseaweed (now part of Surfline) — surf forecasts.
• PredictWind — paid + free; sailing-grade routing.

Aviation / flying

• ForeFlight — paid (~$100+/yr); pilot-grade.
• Aviation Weather Center (aviationweather.gov) — free; METARs, TAFs.
• flightaware.com + flightradar24 — free + paid; trace flight paths and weather diversions.

Air quality

• ★ IQAir / AirVisual — free + paid; ★ for current AQI worldwide; pulls government + crowdsourced sensors.
• ★ World Air Quality Index (waqi.info / aqicn.org) — free; the underlying open data; web map.
• PurpleAir — free; ★ crowdsourced low-cost sensors; great in wildfire zones.
• Plume Labs / Flow — paid hardware + free app.
• Smoke maps (US): NOAA HRRR Smoke layer; AirNow Fire and Smoke Map (free).
• Apple Weather (iOS) and Google include AQI on the same screen.

Pollen / allergy

• Pollen.com (US), Klarify / Air Visual Pollen (EU), The Weather Channel pollen layer — free.
• Apple Weather also includes pollen counts.

Sun / moon / astronomical

• Sun Surveyor — paid (~$10 one-time); ★ for photographers — sun / moon position with AR overlay.
• PhotoPills — paid (~$10) — landscape photographer's planning standard.
• Stellarium Mobile — free + paid; star / planet positions.
• MyTideTimes / Tides Near Me — free; tides for fishing / beach.

Hurricane, typhoon, monsoon

• Hurricane Tracker apps (★ free + paid) — for the season.
• Tropical Tidbits — free; comprehensive tropical-cyclone forecaster's site.
• Zoom Earth — free; satellite tracker; storm visualization.

Practical rules (2026)

• Apple Weather / Google Weather are fine for day-to-day; switch to Windy + government sources for trip-critical decisions.
• Multiple models disagreeing = uncertainty. Windy lets you toggle ECMWF vs. GFS vs. ICON to see the spread.
• Beyond 7 days is fiction — useful for "wet vs. dry season" but don't pack for a 14-day forecast.
• Air quality matters — wildfire smoke from Canada hit NYC and the EU in 2023, 2024, 2025 in ways that disrupted plans. Check before you fly.
• Hurricane / typhoon season: Atlantic Jun–Nov, Pacific year-round (peaks Jul–Oct), SE Asia monsoon May–Oct (varies by country). Buy travel insurance early.
• Lightning kills in open terrain — RadarScope's lightning layer or any storm-tracker app saves lives in summer hiking.

Pick this if…

• Default daily glance: Apple Weather / Google Weather.
• Power-user / serious decision: Windy + your country's government service.
• Severe / chase: RadarScope.
• Wildfire smoke / AQI: IQAir + PurpleAir.
• Marine / sailing: PredictWind or Windy waves layer.
• Photo planning: Sun Surveyor or PhotoPills.