WeatherTrends360 Pro lets you peer into your weather future

There are dozens of weather apps for the iPhone, but most are based on traditional data from places like the National Weather Service in the US, or the Met Office in the UK.

For the last few days I've been using the US $0.99 WeatherTrends360 Pro which has a completely different approach to weather information and forecasting. Rather than a standard 5 or ten day forecast, this app lets you look months or a year ahead. The forecasts work pretty much anywhere worldwide, and are based on trends, historical data from 6.4 million locations in 195 countries. The company claims about 80% forecast accuracy which is certainly better than flipping a coin. Weather Trends International provides forecasting services for many Fortune 500 companies including Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart and Johnson and Johnson.

In addition to the really long-range forecasts, the app offers animated maps of recent lighting strikes, wind speeds, satellite images, even earthquake locations.

I can't vouch for how good the forecasts are a year out, but the app has lots of information that is useful on a daily basis. There are 10 regional animated weather maps, and more traditional short-range forecasts that can give you hourly predictions. I found those forecasts solid at my location.

If found one glitch when I couldn't get my chosen location to stick, but when I exited the app and launched it again, everything was fine.

If you want to play around with the data you can check the WeatherTrends360 website but at the low $0.99 price, this app will give you a lot of weather data for a very small investment. I'm already finding this app to be really useful, and expect that if you care about detailed weather information you'll agree. The app is not universal, but runs on the iPhone and iPod touch, and the iPad. It requires iOS 3.1.2 or later.

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