The best Dark Sky alternatives
Dark Sky leaves behind a legacy as one of themost reliable weather forecasting apps. You’d consult the app to plan your daily activities to avoid those rainy walks while you’re out with the dog and yourvaluable smartwatch, avoiding being caught in a downpour. This is why we turn to easy-to-access apps like Dark Sky to help predict the weather within our immediate vicinity (hyperlocal) with decent accuracy. However, the app will be no more at the start of 2023, so we devised a working list of some of the best alternatives for Dark Sky.
Don’t wait for an emergency to find out your phone could have helped
Overdrop is a fantastic app for customizing alerts, viewing forecasts in graphs, acquiring temperature comparisons, and using radar maps to pinpoint weather changes. Overdrop uses the API from leading forecast apps like AccuWeather and Weatherbit. But to fully access all the included widgets, themes, and data from AccuWeather, you’ll need to buy the premium version for $14. Overdrop still follows through with what the best weather apps can do without swapping between them. And more importantly, Overdrop doesn’t leave out the hyperlocal function, which is why we chose Dark Sky in the first place.
Windy is one of the best apps for wind tracking, which feels like you almost own a portable digital anemometer. Windy shows data on wind forecasts, wind gusts, wind directions, wind compasses, and wind maps with reasonable accuracy. It’s a handy app when you’re planning to go sailing, fishing, paragliding, kiting, or surfing. If your area suffers from tropical storms and hurricanes, the app can help you track those. And there’s a handy offline mode that provides forecasts without requiring access to online Weather Stations, which is worth considering when you’re away from a reliable data source.
5WeatherBug
WeatherBug is a great app to consult for local information like severe weather warnings and conditions, pollen level count, live road conditions, commute routes, Doppler radar, and hourly forecast reports. It’s a weather app full of practicality for the everyday user, though there are ads even with the paid version. But overall, WeatherBug is a solid alternative to Dark Sky if you’re addicted to hyperlocal weather updates.
You also get access to lightning alerts in real time, thunderstorm alerts, animated weather maps, wind speeds, and more. Overall, the app has all the positives you might be missing because of the unavailability of Dark Sky.
4The Weather Channel - Radar
One of the best companion apps paired with a TV weather network, The Weather Channel app allows you to pull and view videos for information and reports on your device. The widget is attractive, and the UI is friendly, similar to the quality of the overall presentation for the Dark Sky app, which is one of the many reasons why users have chosen Dark Sky as their go-to weather app. This app helps plan your traveling by selecting a destination and provides you with information on the weather you may encounter during the trip.
In addition, it has a built-in local radar to give you forecast reports every hour. The only downside to the free version is that the ads are somewhat intrusive when navigating the UI, which may lead to pressuring you to pay for the premium model, which ranges from $5 a month for Pro or $2 a month to remove ads.
3Weather Underground
Dark Sky holds a lot of love for being a phenomenal hyperlocal forecasting app, which is really what the Weather Underground app is all about. This app relies on over 30,000 local networks (personal and amateur) to deliver data. For complete information coverage in the US, it draws on over 250,000 weather stations across the country. Some of the notable features of this app include storm alerts, UV index, AQI, sunset and sunrise times, and light and dark modes. Weather Underground also includes information from crowd reporting like flooding, power outages, and road conditions. The only downside of using the Weather Underground app is that getting rid of all the ads requires you to subscribe to the premium tier at $4 a month.
One of the best features of Dark Sky is the animations and attractive interface. Ventusky presents a solid case for being one of the best visual weather apps. But the beautiful graphical interface doesn’t hide all the information shown. You get the best of both worlds by having gorgeous 3D maps while the forecast information and meteorological data are displayed at your fingertips. You’ll see wind animation, weather forecast in one-hour steps, accurate data based on current radar and satellite readings, AQI, wind gusts, snow cover, cloud cover, freezing level, and more. The free version doesn’t contain ads, but you’ll pay for additional features to gain the full experience with a $4 per year subscription.
1AccuWeather: Weather Radar
AccuWeather is one of the most trusted weather apps on the market that’s available for free with a few optional in-app purchases. AccuWeather presents its information closer to a live basis if you’re hoping for an app that tells you what’s happening with severe weather and predicts upcoming weather. This includes a WinterCast feature that warns you about snowfall and heavy precipitation in advance. The weather alerts are free, so you don’t have to pay to get all the vital information you need. But if you want more after trying out the free version, AccuWeather includes a paid tier with more features at $2 a month.
Always have a trusted weather app on your phone
Don’t get caught in a storm or drenched by an unexpected downpour. It’s always a good idea to load up an app and check if bad weather is coming your way. Some of thebest Android appsare weather apps that provide everything you need to know for your outings. Still, Dark Sky will always be one of the favorite weather apps, but we can download some fantastic alternatives.
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