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Weather Radar APIs in 2025: A Founder's Complete Market Overview

53 points by sea-gold 1y ago

klinquist 1y ago
OWM constantly shows the high temp 10 degrees higher than actual on warm days. I emailed them.. 2 years ago? to notify them of this, they said they know... It's still a problem. Santa Clara, CA.
furyg3 1y ago
On the app side, what's the best (global) app for rain forecasting over the next few hours (paid or not)? Here in the Netherlands everyone uses "buienradar" which is limited to the Netherlands, has very bad privacy, and is also not super great at predicting rainfall.
- hhh 1y ago
  Since moving to the Netherlands I have found it surprising how bad short term forecasting is here. In the US I would get a notification 15 minutes before it rained and it would almost always be accurate within 5 minutes, and a notification when it was going to stop. I don’t really understand why it is so much worse here in this regard.
  - troupo 1y ago
    wat. There are apps like Buienradar that literally track and predict rain block by block with high accuracy.
    - hhh 1y ago
      in my experience buienradar is never as accurate as whatever sauce the NWS provided that Apple uses for the weather app prediction in the US.
      - troupo 1y ago
        Granted, I've only used it for a bit while in the Netherlands, and it was accurate to the block and to the minute. And every time when people would mention weather they would open the app to see if rain is coming in their particular location. I think it's due to peculiarity of Dutch weather: you could have rain literally 100 meters away from you, but not where you're standing. So usual "weather in the general region of where you are" are probably wildly inaccurate
  - gHA5 1y ago
    Have you considered whether this is because of the local weather tendencies? I visited the Netherlands once in summer near Amsterdam, and there were short bursts of rain frequently throughout the day. I'd imagine weather patterns like that are not well represented in global weather apps lowering the prediction accuracy in such regions.
    - lxgr 1y ago
      As far as I can tell, it's largely a data or modeling problem. Weather radars exist in most of Europe, including all of Western Europe. What's missing is somebody actually getting that data (which is not open in all countries) and feeding it into a short-term precipitation prediction model like Dark Sky (now Apple) does in a few regions. Currently, in regions where it's not available, I just do that manually: Look the rain radar data for the last hour or so and extrapolate linearly based on wind direction. You'll miss rain that's just starting or stopping or sudden changes in wind direction, but it's much better than what many apps offer.
- joncrane 1y ago
  I use weather underground in the Eastern US but I'd love to know if there's a better app. I also use RadarScope but that's more to see the intensity of nearby rain cells and try to guess for myself their movement and evolution
  - squaresmile 1y ago
    I find Accuweather MinutecastTM quite good for the Northeast. I'm using Breezy Weather with them as the data source. Sometimes, I found their API data was not as updated as their website/app but most of the time, the API is good enough. Can't stand their app design and data collection. I know I know they are not nice, just repackaging NWS data blah blah but after testing all other rain prediction services, Accuweather was the most accurate for where I am. Dark Sky was the best though. RIP Apple Weather on iOS looks pretty good but I haven't found a good app consuming AW API on Android.
    - foobarian 1y ago
      I find Accuweather radar UI pretty good for manual forecasting because I can grab the slider and rapidly move it back and forth to see a timelapse of the precipitation. It's amazing how often huge cells pass to either side of our little town (also in Northeast) without a single drop to our name.
- Sanzig 1y ago
  If you want to go overboard, there's NOAA's Global Forecast System. https://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/emc/pages/numerical_forecast_systems/gfs.php https://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/emc/pages/numerical_forecast_s... Updated four times per day and has predictions out to about two weeks. It's used as the core input of most weather forecasts.
  - Catbert59 1y ago
    ECMWF also offers free forecast charts on their website. It's a bit more modern.
- counters 1y ago
  It depends where you are in the world. The general solution involve an app that provides two types of forecast products: (1) a short-range, high-resolution numerical weather forecast over your country / domain of interest, refreshed rapidly (about an hour or so) and providing forecasts out to about 24 hours; and (2) a radar-based nowcast which extrapolates very short-term (~2 hours out) forecasts solely for rain. The limitations straightforward. For (1), very few countries have access to such a forecast system outside of the US and continental Europe, and virtually no private company runs comparable systems (at least in the B2C space). For (2), very few countries have high-quality doppler radar networks and make the output available for these applications. There really isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to this problem, despite what the umpteen-gazillion weather apps on the Play Store or Apple Store will try to sell you.
- Brajeshwar 1y ago
  When I visited Amsterdam, I was suggested Drops and it worked down to the minutes. I was like, wow! This is brilliant. https://apps.apple.com/in/app/drops-with-rain-radar/id981543863 https://apps.apple.com/in/app/drops-with-rain-radar/id981543...
- ricklamers 1y ago
  I have found 'Buienalarm' to be more accurate in the Netherlands, not scientifically, just anecdotally
vanillax 1y ago
How do apps like Carrot get "hyper local" radar maps? Like ive never understood how these apps like Carrot have like 5-6 radar types if they are just calling someone elses API.. Id have to imagine theres some very heavy vector like DBs of points of xy radar raw data? Then they visualize it?
- kryllic 1y ago
  Apps like Carrot get their 'hyperlocal' radar maps by pulling data from various sources, often a combination of regional radar stations like NEXRAD and TDWR, depending on the location. In the U.S., the general radar view you see is often based on a mosaic of data from all NEXRAD stations across the country. While this is good for a broad look at weather patterns, it tends to be less accurate at a local level. For 'hyperlocal' views, apps will grab radar data from specific, nearby stations, which are more accurate and provide more frequent updates (e.g., every 5-10 minutes for NEXRAD). However, the resolution can vary depending on the radar type. TDWR, which is typically used for airports, might not provide the same level of resolution as NEXRAD. Radar data is usually shared in formats like NetCDF or Gridded Binary, and weather apps let users choose between viewing the high-level mosaic or zooming in on a specific radar station's data. This is why different radar types are offered in apps, each with its own resolution and refresh rate.
  - vanillax 1y ago
    thanks!
GratiaTerra 1y ago
I'd like to see a global foundation managing open standards, with local operators (commercial, nonprofit, academic, government) running radars, and multi-layered funding (enterprise subscriptions, public-good subsidies, and co-op models) sustaining the system. It becomes the “public utility of weather data”, much like the internet itself.
kryllic 1y ago
Kudos to the dev for offering users alternatives. Tomorrow.io in the Carrot app is pretty solid for the most part, happy to see it make the list. Dark Sky was one of the absolute best weather apps I've ever had the pleasure of using. I have no idea how Apple managed to mangle it to the current state it's in with their weather app.
lxgr 1y ago
On the topic of weather radar: I've been wondering what it'll take for Apple (arguably one of the most widely consumed weather services at this point!) to finally consume radar data available under open data licenses. Some countries only make their data available commercially, but e.g. Germany does make high-resolution radar available under CC-BY 4.0, yet Apple seems to be completely ignoring all of it.
dlcarrier 1y ago
Commercial weather APIs usually consolidate information most governments provide for free, for the benefit of nautical/aeronautical trade. If you just need local data, search for you government's API. Here's the National Weather Service API, for those in the US: https://api.weather.gov https://api.weather.gov
- whalesalad 1y ago
  Yep. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/radar/next-generation-weather-radar https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/radar/next-generation-wea... Not an API, but I really like supercell wx for a local radar terminal. Cross platform and works great on Linux. It does require an API key to do the map rendering, but the actual weather data is pulled from government sources (free) https://github.com/dpaulat/supercell-wx https://github.com/dpaulat/supercell-wx
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  FWIW, there are people who would very much like to see that no longer be the case in the US.
  - LargeWu 1y ago
    AccuWeather has lobbied hard to privatize weather data. However, I'm not sure who would be collecting that data if the government stopped collecting it for them.
    - lenerdenator 1y ago
      I would imagine (off of no solid evidence) that they'd love to see the entire system privatized including the infrastructure. Could be wrong, though.
    - HumblyTossed 1y ago
      Oh, they want the government to keep collecting it, they just want to make sure it's not provided to us citizens for free.
    - 1y ago

53 points by sea-gold 1y ago

OWM constantly shows the high temp 10 degrees higher than actual on warm days. I emailed them.. 2 years ago? to notify them of this, they said they know... It's still a problem. Santa Clara, CA.

furyg3 1y ago

On the app side, what's the best (global) app for rain forecasting over the next few hours (paid or not)? Here in the Netherlands everyone uses "buienradar" which is limited to the Netherlands, has very bad privacy, and is also not super great at predicting rainfall.

hhh 1y ago
Since moving to the Netherlands I have found it surprising how bad short term forecasting is here. In the US I would get a notification 15 minutes before it rained and it would almost always be accurate within 5 minutes, and a notification when it was going to stop. I don’t really understand why it is so much worse here in this regard.
- troupo 1y ago
  wat. There are apps like Buienradar that literally track and predict rain block by block with high accuracy.
  - hhh 1y ago
    in my experience buienradar is never as accurate as whatever sauce the NWS provided that Apple uses for the weather app prediction in the US.
    - troupo 1y ago
      Granted, I've only used it for a bit while in the Netherlands, and it was accurate to the block and to the minute. And every time when people would mention weather they would open the app to see if rain is coming in their particular location. I think it's due to peculiarity of Dutch weather: you could have rain literally 100 meters away from you, but not where you're standing. So usual "weather in the general region of where you are" are probably wildly inaccurate
- gHA5 1y ago
  Have you considered whether this is because of the local weather tendencies? I visited the Netherlands once in summer near Amsterdam, and there were short bursts of rain frequently throughout the day. I'd imagine weather patterns like that are not well represented in global weather apps lowering the prediction accuracy in such regions.
  - lxgr 1y ago
    As far as I can tell, it's largely a data or modeling problem. Weather radars exist in most of Europe, including all of Western Europe. What's missing is somebody actually getting that data (which is not open in all countries) and feeding it into a short-term precipitation prediction model like Dark Sky (now Apple) does in a few regions. Currently, in regions where it's not available, I just do that manually: Look the rain radar data for the last hour or so and extrapolate linearly based on wind direction. You'll miss rain that's just starting or stopping or sudden changes in wind direction, but it's much better than what many apps offer.
joncrane 1y ago
I use weather underground in the Eastern US but I'd love to know if there's a better app. I also use RadarScope but that's more to see the intensity of nearby rain cells and try to guess for myself their movement and evolution
- squaresmile 1y ago
  I find Accuweather MinutecastTM quite good for the Northeast. I'm using Breezy Weather with them as the data source. Sometimes, I found their API data was not as updated as their website/app but most of the time, the API is good enough. Can't stand their app design and data collection. I know I know they are not nice, just repackaging NWS data blah blah but after testing all other rain prediction services, Accuweather was the most accurate for where I am. Dark Sky was the best though. RIP Apple Weather on iOS looks pretty good but I haven't found a good app consuming AW API on Android.
  - foobarian 1y ago
    I find Accuweather radar UI pretty good for manual forecasting because I can grab the slider and rapidly move it back and forth to see a timelapse of the precipitation. It's amazing how often huge cells pass to either side of our little town (also in Northeast) without a single drop to our name.
Sanzig 1y ago
If you want to go overboard, there's NOAA's Global Forecast System. https://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/emc/pages/numerical_forecast_systems/gfs.php https://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/emc/pages/numerical_forecast_s... Updated four times per day and has predictions out to about two weeks. It's used as the core input of most weather forecasts.
- Catbert59 1y ago
  ECMWF also offers free forecast charts on their website. It's a bit more modern.
counters 1y ago
It depends where you are in the world. The general solution involve an app that provides two types of forecast products: (1) a short-range, high-resolution numerical weather forecast over your country / domain of interest, refreshed rapidly (about an hour or so) and providing forecasts out to about 24 hours; and (2) a radar-based nowcast which extrapolates very short-term (~2 hours out) forecasts solely for rain. The limitations straightforward. For (1), very few countries have access to such a forecast system outside of the US and continental Europe, and virtually no private company runs comparable systems (at least in the B2C space). For (2), very few countries have high-quality doppler radar networks and make the output available for these applications. There really isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to this problem, despite what the umpteen-gazillion weather apps on the Play Store or Apple Store will try to sell you.
Brajeshwar 1y ago
When I visited Amsterdam, I was suggested Drops and it worked down to the minutes. I was like, wow! This is brilliant. https://apps.apple.com/in/app/drops-with-rain-radar/id981543863 https://apps.apple.com/in/app/drops-with-rain-radar/id981543...
ricklamers 1y ago
I have found 'Buienalarm' to be more accurate in the Netherlands, not scientifically, just anecdotally

vanillax 1y ago

How do apps like Carrot get "hyper local" radar maps? Like ive never understood how these apps like Carrot have like 5-6 radar types if they are just calling someone elses API.. Id have to imagine theres some very heavy vector like DBs of points of xy radar raw data? Then they visualize it?

kryllic 1y ago
Apps like Carrot get their 'hyperlocal' radar maps by pulling data from various sources, often a combination of regional radar stations like NEXRAD and TDWR, depending on the location. In the U.S., the general radar view you see is often based on a mosaic of data from all NEXRAD stations across the country. While this is good for a broad look at weather patterns, it tends to be less accurate at a local level. For 'hyperlocal' views, apps will grab radar data from specific, nearby stations, which are more accurate and provide more frequent updates (e.g., every 5-10 minutes for NEXRAD). However, the resolution can vary depending on the radar type. TDWR, which is typically used for airports, might not provide the same level of resolution as NEXRAD. Radar data is usually shared in formats like NetCDF or Gridded Binary, and weather apps let users choose between viewing the high-level mosaic or zooming in on a specific radar station's data. This is why different radar types are offered in apps, each with its own resolution and refresh rate.
- vanillax 1y ago
  thanks!

GratiaTerra 1y ago

I'd like to see a global foundation managing open standards, with local operators (commercial, nonprofit, academic, government) running radars, and multi-layered funding (enterprise subscriptions, public-good subsidies, and co-op models) sustaining the system. It becomes the “public utility of weather data”, much like the internet itself.

kryllic 1y ago

Kudos to the dev for offering users alternatives. Tomorrow.io in the Carrot app is pretty solid for the most part, happy to see it make the list. Dark Sky was one of the absolute best weather apps I've ever had the pleasure of using. I have no idea how Apple managed to mangle it to the current state it's in with their weather app.

lxgr 1y ago

On the topic of weather radar: I've been wondering what it'll take for Apple (arguably one of the most widely consumed weather services at this point!) to finally consume radar data available under open data licenses. Some countries only make their data available commercially, but e.g. Germany does make high-resolution radar available under CC-BY 4.0, yet Apple seems to be completely ignoring all of it.

dlcarrier 1y ago

Commercial weather APIs usually consolidate information most governments provide for free, for the benefit of nautical/aeronautical trade. If you just need local data, search for you government's API. Here's the National Weather Service API, for those in the US: https://api.weather.gov https://api.weather.gov

whalesalad 1y ago
Yep. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/radar/next-generation-weather-radar https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/radar/next-generation-wea... Not an API, but I really like supercell wx for a local radar terminal. Cross platform and works great on Linux. It does require an API key to do the map rendering, but the actual weather data is pulled from government sources (free) https://github.com/dpaulat/supercell-wx https://github.com/dpaulat/supercell-wx
lenerdenator 1y ago
FWIW, there are people who would very much like to see that no longer be the case in the US.
- LargeWu 1y ago
  AccuWeather has lobbied hard to privatize weather data. However, I'm not sure who would be collecting that data if the government stopped collecting it for them.
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    I would imagine (off of no solid evidence) that they'd love to see the entire system privatized including the infrastructure. Could be wrong, though.
  - HumblyTossed 1y ago
    Oh, they want the government to keep collecting it, they just want to make sure it's not provided to us citizens for free.
  - 1y ago