Tech Away: Come rain or shine, smile

January 23, 2015 07:25 pm | Updated 07:25 pm IST

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mp_techaway

Remember that old rhyme, ‘Rain, rain, go away, little Johnny wants to play’? Well, if you knew exactly when it was going to rain, you wouldn’t have to deal with little Johnny’s tantrums due to unexpected showers. As always, you can look to your smartphone for assistance.

The Weather (earlier, ilMeteo Weather)

ilMeteo’s weather app is more advanced than your average weather apps; in that it shows you real-time conditions via satellite pictures, webcams and expert analysis. And not just your exact location – around the globe as well. You can also check for wind, sea and surf conditions to plan that boating expedition. While it includes great widgets, they won’t be available if you move the app to your SD card or install it there. Also, on multi-user devices (attention, Android Lollipop users), the app would work only with the default user.

GO Weather Forecast & Widget

One of the most popular weather apps, GO Weather Forecast & Widget comprises an easy-to-use and clean user interface. In conjunction with AccuWeather, the app is able to provide accurate weather information for 200000 plus locations globally. There are more than a 1000 personalised themes, including plenty of widgets and wallpapers that come in different sizes. The app also offers weather alerts, hourly/daily forecast, wind and precipitation forecasts, even map and radar information. The app also supports a multitude of languages, including Hindi and Urdu.

InstaWeather

Social media is everywhere, and weather apps want a piece of the pie. This app basically personalises your weather forecasts. That is, it lets you share photos with your friends on various social media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) with the weather report and forecast of the place you are in currently. As macworld.co.uk put it, the app is “the social side of getting wet, soaking up the sun”. You can select your favourite skin from more than 70 options and even include very detailed forecasts with air pressure, temperature, rain, wind power and direction.

MeteoEarth

The app employs high-end gaming technology and great graphics for you to check out the weather forecast of any location on Earth in real-time. You can rotate the globe, zoom in/zoom out, watch it rain at any location or trace the path of an approaching low-pressure system.

You can choose what weather layer to view (like cloud cover, rain or wind), switch to the climate data mode for a global overview of climatic conditions, even view images from live webcams all over the globe. MeteoEarth also works beautifully with Chromecast. So go ahead, give it a whirl. Literally.

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