It’s a bummer that Dark Sky is going away for some people”whether you’re an Android user or your depend on the service’s API for your own customised weather setup, like a Home Assistant card. But maybe it wasn’t the best weather service to begin with?
I don’t say that to crap on Dark Sky; it’s a great app and a great weather service. However, where you live is different from where I live, and there might be apps that are even more accurate at predicting the forecast than what a lot of people have simply assured you was “the best weather app.”
To actually find the best weather service for where you live, try Dark Sky alternatives, and it’s useful enough for your everyday life to warrant its own special callout.
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The site is simple to use. You enter your zip code or city/state combination and are delivered a quick five-day forecast in return. That’s not nearly as interesting as the other data ForecastAdvisor offers, however: The site also details which of the major weather services have been the most accurate at predicting your local weather conditions over the previous month and the same time period a year earlier. That’s useful if you’d like to see who has upped their prediction game”or gotten worse.
I also like ForecastAdvisor’s advanced analysis, found using the tiny “Further accuracy analysis »” link in the lower-right corner; click that for even more detail about which weather service is most worth your attention.
My suspicion is that you won’t find a ton of variance between the Top Five: The Weather Channel, Weather Underground, AccuWeather, Dark Sky and Foreca. I’d probably stick with one of them”or at least an app that taps into one of them”were I looking for a new source for weather updates.
As for which app might serve you best, that depends on just how much of a variance you see on your ForecastAdvisor report. If your favourite app uses a service that’s only a few percentage points away from the most accurate one, I wouldn’t sweat it. No need shuffle around your life or app habits for a service that might be only marginally better at predicting your weather at the expense of, say, an annoying UI.
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