Apple App Picks

Weather

Best Weather Apps for 2026

Five apps for actually knowing what's coming.

We tested for three weeks before we wrote this. No review units, no affiliate compensation, no sponsorship.

Weather apps are a category most people never reconsider after they first pick one. That’s usually fine — the underlying forecast data for tomorrow’s high temperature is close to identical across apps, because most of them are pulling from a small number of shared models. Where they actually differ is precipitation timing, radar responsiveness, and whether the interface tells you what you need in the two seconds you’re willing to give it.

We tested five apps that cover the real use cases: a daily-glance default, a power-user app with a personality, a planning-and-maps tool, a radar-first nowcasting app, and a minimalist option. CARROT Weather is the top pick, but it isn’t the only right answer — which one of these five you want depends heavily on whether you check the weather once a day or five times.

How we tested

I (James) ran Apple Weather as my only weather app for the first half of the year, then added CARROT Weather in Premium Club as a daily-driver comparison for four months. Windy I’ve used for over a year specifically before hikes and flights, not as a daily app. RainViewer I ran through a stretch of severe thunderstorm season specifically to test radar responsiveness. Lily ran Hello Weather for six weeks as a minimalist comparison point. No developer comp, no review units.

1. CARROT Weather — Top Pick

Best for: anyone who checks the weather more than once a day.

CARROT Weather’s core idea is simple and its execution is deep: instead of locking you to one forecast provider, it lets you choose — Apple Weather, Foreca, AccuWeather, Tomorrow.io, OpenWeather, or Xweather — and switch when one is clearly wrong for your area that week. The default forecasts are powered by Foreca, which we’ve found reliably accurate in day-to-day use. Layer on top of that a minute-by-minute precipitation timeline that’s more assertive than Apple’s about exact start and stop times, deep widget customization, and an Apple Watch complication that’s genuinely useful, and it’s the app we reach for first.

The much-discussed personality — CARROT talks to you, with five tone options from “professional” to profanity-laden “overkill” — is the part that gets it noticed, but it isn’t why we recommend it. You can set it to “professional” and never think about the bit again. The actual case for CARROT is the data-source flexibility and the precipitation timing.

The case against: the interface has a learning curve relative to Apple Weather’s simplicity, and the full feature set — including the alternate data sources — sits behind Premium Club.

Pros:

• Choice of forecast data source, switchable by location
• More precise minute-by-minute precipitation timing than Apple Weather
• Deep, genuinely customizable widgets and watch complications
• Built by a single, long-tenured indie developer

Cons:

• Full feature set requires Premium Club
• More setup and configuration than a default app
• The humor is a taste some users actively dislike (mutable, but present by default)

Pricing: Free with in-app purchases. Premium Club subscription unlocks additional data sources and personalities.

2. Apple Weather — Best Free Default

Best for: anyone who wants zero setup and a single daily glance.

Apple’s own Weather app has quietly become good. It absorbed the forecasting approach from the Dark Sky team years ago, and the result is a clean hourly precipitation graph, solid severe-weather alerts, and air-quality data, all with no download required and no account to create. For most people who check the weather once in the morning, this is genuinely enough.

The case against Apple Weather is the flip side of its simplicity: one data source, no way to compare providers when a forecast looks off, and widget customization that’s serviceable but shallow next to CARROT’s.

Pros:

• Built into iOS — nothing to install
• Clean, legible hourly and 10-day views
• Solid severe-weather alerts and air-quality data
• No account, no ads

Cons:

• Single data source with no way to switch providers
• Widgets are functional, not deep
• Nothing distinguishing if the default forecast is wrong for your area

Pricing: Free.

3. Windy — Best for Outdoor Planning

Best for: hiking, sailing, flying, or anyone planning around wind and storms days out.

Windy is a different kind of app than the other four on this list — it’s a map, not a daily-glance forecast. You get wind, precipitation, pressure, wave height, and lightning tracking layered on an interactive globe, with a choice of forecast models including ECMWF, GFS, and ICON. It’s the app we open before a hike or a flight, not the one we open at breakfast. If you also use Strava for tracking outdoor runs and rides, Windy is the natural companion for deciding whether today is actually a good day to go.

The case against Windy for a general user: it’s overkill for “do I need a jacket,” and the density of the map interface takes real time to learn.

Pros:

• Multiple forecast models in one place, directly comparable
• Best-in-class wind, wave, and pressure visualization
• Free with no ads, no account required
• Trusted by pilots, sailors, and serious outdoor planners

Cons:

• Steep learning curve for casual users
• Overkill if you just want tomorrow’s high and low
• Map-first design means more taps to get a simple answer

Pricing: Free.

4. RainViewer — Best for Radar

Best for: knowing exactly when the rain starts and stops, right now.

RainViewer does one job and does it with less friction than any general-purpose app: live precipitation radar, refreshed frequently, with a short-term nowcast that tells you when rain is about to start or let up in your exact location. During a stretch of thunderstorm season we ran it specifically to check radar responsiveness, and it consistently updated faster and read more clearly than the radar layers buried inside broader apps. If a storm has already disrupted your plans for the day, it’s also worth checking our to-do app picks for how to reshuffle a schedule quickly rather than losing the whole afternoon to it.

The case against RainViewer: it’s a radar tool, not a forecast app — no real 10-day outlook, no severe-weather alert system to match Apple’s or CARROT’s.

Pros:

• Frequently-updated, easy-to-read precipitation radar
• Short-term nowcast is genuinely useful before you head out
• Fast to open, fast to read
• Available on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch

Cons:

• Not a substitute for a full forecast app
• Ads on the free tier
• Narrow scope by design — some will want more in one app

Pricing: Free with ads. Paid tier removes ads and extends radar history.

5. Hello Weather — Best Minimalist Option

Best for: people who want a clean glance and nothing else.

Hello Weather strips the category down to current conditions, an hourly view, a daily view, and minute-by-minute rain — with a calm, uncluttered design that’s easy to read at a glance. It’s made by a small independent team with a plainly stated no-ads, no-tracking posture, which is worth noting in a category where a lot of “free” apps monetize attention aggressively. It also pairs cleanly with Shortcuts if you want a one-tap “what’s the day look like” automation — something we cover more broadly in our productivity app picks.

The case against Hello Weather: it’s intentionally light. No radar maps to speak of, no model-switching, no personality. If you want depth, look elsewhere on this list.

Pros:

• Clean, minimal, easy to read at a glance
• Stated no-ads, no-tracking privacy posture
• Small, independent team
• Works well with Shortcuts automations

Cons:

• No radar maps or forecast-model choice
• Fewer widget options than CARROT or Apple Weather
• Full feature set requires an in-app purchase

Pricing: Free with an in-app purchase to unlock the full app.

Quick Comparison Table

Verdict