Welcome to Weathertron, an effortless way to create interactive infographics of your weather. Save the infographic as an image and share it with your friends, too. You may think an app like Weathertron is just for looks, but with high wind advisories, a reliable minute-by-minute forecast for the next 48 hours and weather reports for the entire globe, this one has the brains to back up its beauty. I’ll take a look at this unconventional weather app and see whether it’s got the features we’ve come to expect.
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How’s the Weather?
Because Weathertron is set up like an infographic, it’s important to know what each different piece of the graphic represents so that you can decipher what your weather is going to do. The bottom section displays the day’s temperature plotted on a line graph. Flags call out your high and low temps for the day, and your current temp is displayed at the top of the screen. Drag along the line graph to see the projected temperature for the next several hours.
Check your current weather and get your sunrise and sunset times.
Precipitation is represented as a bar graph in the center of the screen. The more rain or snow you can expect, the taller the bars will be. Look to the key on the right to see if you’re going to be getting light, moderate or heavy rainfall. As before on the temperature graph, drag along the bar graph and your weather pictographs up top will change accordingly.
Check out your weather for later today, and notice that cloud cover!
There’s another bar just above your precipitation graphic — this one denotes cloud cover. When the bar is the same blue as the rest of the graph, you’ll see clear skies outside. A white bar indicates the sun is out of sight. Any shade in between means you’ve got cloudy skies; the whiter the band, the cloudier your day is going to be.
Weathertron also has your weather for tomorrow and the next week.
Tap the temp and weather pictograph up top to see the sunrise and sunset times, or tap Tomorrow to get all the weather information for the next day. Weathertron will get you a seven-day forecast too, available by tapping the icon in the lower right. You’ll see the highs and lows for the next week and whether you can expect rain, clouds or clear skies. There’s also a quick summary describing what’s happening and calling out any big weather events on the horizon.
Let’s See the Map in Motion
Hit the menu icon in the lower left to get some extra features. Set your location up top, or let Weathertron figure out where you are. I tried entering a bunch of different places throughout the world, and Weathertron found them all, even suggesting some cities of which I’d never even heard. Unfortunately though, Weathertron can’t remember more than one location. I like to save a few places in any weather app I use, but if I want to check the weather at home and at work when I first wake up in the morning with Weathertron, I have to search for them separately. Thankfully, Weathertron does let me switch back and forth between Fahrenheit and Celsius, or use a 24-hour clock if I want.
Set your location and other preferences.
While Weathertron does fall down a bit when it comes to switching among locations, it’s one of the best apps I’ve seen for sharing your weather. Short of taking a picture of something awesome happening outside your window, and the really awesome weather is usually too dangerous to allow you to snap photos anyway, Weathertron may have the best looking weather images of any weather app. Each forecast is a little infographic, and they’re all constantly changing. It’s an easy thing to save or share your weather graphic to Twitter or Facebook and let everyone see how snowy or rainy or terribly hot it is where you live.
Final Thoughts
I love how Weathertron looks, and looks are a big deal. Don’t let me undersell how fabulous Weathertron’s little infographics are, and how well they pack a lot of information into a dynamic little package. This is where Weathertron does a great job. I can’t save multiple locations though, and that’s not so good. I need to know what the weather’s like in at least three places everyday, and while that’s not impossible with Weathertron, it’s easier in other apps.
But Weathertron is still the prettiest at the party. Without saved locations, it’s not going to replace any Weather app I’m already using, but I’ll certainly let my weather nerd flag fly a little higher with something like Weathertron on my homescreen. It makes a great social weather app, and I’ll definitely use it to let my friends know when it’s pouring cats and dogs or hot enough to fry an egg. All those nifty Weathertron infographics will be finding their way onto my Facebook and Twitter timelines, even if it doesn’t replace more robust weather apps on my phone.
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