Two weather apps take their place in the sun

A few weeks ago I attempted to assess some weather apps for the Nokia Lumia to identify, not necessarily, the best apps but ones with unique features that made them stand out.
Nevertheless, many of you were quick to point out that I had made a glaring omission in not considering the Weather Flow and Weather View apps. I’m sure after this post many of you will be recommending other weather apps as well!

As I said, in my first post it’s all about personal preference and having a choice is a good thing. Most of all, it is great that you are eager to share your tips and are so vocal about your favourite apps.

So, in that spirit and to help make amends for not including them in the first post, here is a belated appraisal of Weather Flow and Weather View.

Weather Flow

As I installed and started using Weather Flow, two things struck me.

Firstly – and in my defence – it’s easy to see why it was initially overlooked. There is nothing novel about the app and neither does it come packed with features, such as video bulletins, severe weather alerts or radar maps.

However, what this app does do, and rather beautifully as well, is tell you the weather forecast.

Swipe the screen up or down to flip between a picture background and a graphical view. The animation of my rolling clouds (I live in London, what do you expect?) on my picture background looked fantastic.

Swipe across to a different location, in this case New York where it was a hot and sunny day, and the background picture morphed into summery field.

I should add that even in the graphical view, the icons are animated and look equally delightful.

Supporters of Weather Flow also pointed out that its two-sided Live Tile was another of its strengths.

You can pin any number of your locations on to the start screen and also set how often you want the Live Tile to be refreshed.

The first side of the Live Tile shows today’s forecast and the flip-side compares the outlook with yesterday. Charmingly, it informs you if an umbrella is required.

Overall, it is easy to see why Weather Flow is so popular with so many of you. It does its job without the need for any gimmicks and, moreover, it does it beautifully.

Weather Flow costs £1.49 in the Windows Phone Marketplace, but you can try it for free for three days.

Weather View

In many ways, Weather View felt like a much more expansive app than Weather Flow, yet of the two, I preferred Weather Flow.

Upon installing the app, you have to manually type in up to five cities of interest – there is no automatic location feature, as in most of the weather apps I have tried.

However, once you’re set up it is a comprehensive app.

There are various screens that you swipe through, all showing various amounts of detail and graphics of the forecast for the next week, or the next 24 hours. You can also click the chart icon to bring up a meteogram for a city.

If you don’t need so much information about one city in particular, then you can select the ‘My Cities’ view which will allow you to swipe through different locations in turn.

The app is fairly strong on customisation, letting you choose a background image, the forecast view, units of measurement and settings for the live tile.

Weather View is a worthy app and I’m glad it has its fans. For me though, Weather Flow, for being simpler to use and being far more beautiful to look at, is the one that brings the sun out.

Weather View is free from the Windows Phone Marketplace.