If you’ve been following the development of the Tempest Weather System on Indiegogo or Kickstarter, you know that it not only provides a hyper-local weather forecast, but includes our “Better Forecast Guarantee” - a weather forecast for your location that’s guaranteed to be more accurate than what you get in any other weather app.
Using the Tempest Weather System, validated data is combined in WeatherFlow’s proprietary AI forecast system with the best available models. The same powerful machine learning techniques are then reapplied as new data comes in, resulting in a dramatically improved forecast that only gets better over time.
Customers have benefited from WeatherFlow’s forecast system for many years. The recent development, and what our team has been steadily working towards for the last couple years, is that our forecast system now scales globally rather than only providing forecasts in certain regions. The forthcoming Tempest app (which will replace the Smart Weather app) will not depend on Dark Sky or any other third-party weather source.
Q: How will the Smart Weather app be affected by Apple’s purchase of Dark Sky?
A: Not at all. The plan for the forthcoming Tempest app, which will replace the Smart Weather app, was always to utilize WeatherFlow forecast data. The update will provide much more forecast information than the current Smart Weather app does. The link to Dark Sky will disappear.
Q: Do you have any suggestions for an alternate to the Dark Sky app?
A: Yes, use the Tempest Weather app, which will provide a detailed weather forecast that’s guaranteed to be better than the forecast in any other weather app.
Q: Will the Tempest Weather app provide radar or other precipitation information?
A: The first version of the Tempest Weather app will not include radar maps, but these will be added in a future release.
Q: Will you offer a solution for developers who depend on the Dark Sky API?
A: WeatherFlow has had a rich, powerful weather forecast API for many years. It’s been the source of all weather data found in our coastally oriented consumer apps and now will be the source for Tempest. It’s also the API that provides data to many government and commercial organizations around the world. We are considering making this API more self-serve accessible to developers but that won’t occur soon. Developers and other potential partners interested in using our API are encouraged to contact us for more information. Keep in mind that the Dark Sky announced their API will remain active until the end of 2021.
I got fed up with WeatherUnderground finally last week. IBM has made a mockery of the app and cut off the free access for those who provided them data. I will be pulling my station off of there once your app comes out!