As unprecedented weather leads to increasing climate anxiety, there’s a raft of different apps catering for every kind of forecast. From a report: Preoccupation with weather apps is commonplace in our current unsettled atmosphere. On social media there is almost as much chat about weather apps as there is about the weather: much of it is ire about inaccurate forecasts; some of it is from users who admit checking weather apps more than seems logical. There is still palpable grief, in the wake of the closure of the short-term weather prediction app Dark Sky, late last year, after its acquisition by Apple. In April, when Apple’s weather app went down, there was such outrage that the temporary glitch became an international news story.
Fifty per cent of US smartphone users regularly use weather apps; according to Statista, weather apps will make approximately $1.5bn in revenue in 2023, a leap from $530m in 2017. Jeremiah Lasquety-Reyes, a senior analyst for Statista, says this new weather app ecosystem is only going to grow, owing to the climate crisis, as well as a general trend towards “digitizing one’s life and schedule.” There are certainly plenty out there, catering to a variety of needs: more than 10,000 apps have the word “weather” in the title in Android and iPhone app stores.
