Live Weather Forecast app adds weather radio and HD Radar

Even with lots of weather apps to choose from, including excellent free apps from Apple and Yahoo, I'm always interested to see something new come along in the weather category that has a unique feature set. Live Weather Forecast (US$0.99) is a graphically pleasing universal app that packs a lot of information into an uncluttered user interface.

Of course you get temperature, wind speeds, humidity, feels-like temperature, and a nice ten-day forecast, but you also get the Ultraviolet Index for your chosen location and an interactive map with radar and satellite maps for cloud cover, precipitation, snow and more. It allows unlimited cities to be added for review, and there is a nice, unobtrusive animated background reflecting the weather in each city. Swiping down provides more detail for the current location, while swiping left to right displays any other cities you have added. A circular swipe on the current temperature shows predictions of temperatures for many hours ahead.

I think the nicest feature of Live Weather Forecast is full access to NOAA Weather Radio. NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) comes from stations that are set up by the U.S. government to broadcast timely forecasts and alerts for bad weather. It can also provide information during severe incidents like oil spills or other disasters like earthquakes. It's handy to have NWR built into the app. It can play in the background while you do other things with your iDevice, and as a bonus, the app supports AirPlay.



Live Weather Forecast does not provide dedicated weather alerts, but if you want audio notifications of significant events that feature is built into your iPhone. Most U.S. cellular carriers support this feature. To turn it on, navigate to Settings > Notifications, then scroll to the bottom of the screen and you can turn on (or off) AMBER alerts and Emergency Alerts.

I think the only thing Live Weather Forecast lacks is text-based weather notifications. Moonrise/set times would be also nice considering all the other information that is provided.

This is a nice app for under a dollar, and the NOAA Weather Radio service is a solid addition. Live Weather Forecast requires iOS and is optimized for the iPhone 5 and 6 series of devices.