Wunderground or Weather Wunderground is my favorite all-around app. It is owned by the Weather Company which is in turn owned by IBM. In 2021 a study named it the most accurate weather app. Of course, the study was commissioned by IBM. I like this app for its ease of use and the graphs that are displayed for temperature, precipitation, wind speed and direction. It includes sunrise and sunset times. Forecasts go for about 10 days in advance to help your planning. And it is free, supported by ads that aren’t too obtrusive!  This free app does not provide advanced predictive mapping of radar.

Major benefit of this app are how quickly you can shift from one save location to another and from a ten day view to an hourly view. It gets high marks for ease of use.

Meteoblue primarily provides data to business customers, such as airlines, but they have an app I like for one particular feature, which is its graph of cloud cover. This helps predict the best skies for sunrise and sunset. The with a little experience, it is easy to whether the cloud cover will be ground fog, dense low clouds, thin high clouds (often ideal for sunsets) or a mix of all of these. The Meteoblue app also has satellite, radar and wind maps that included future times. The app is free, supported by ads.

If it weren't for the cloud diagrams, I likely would not use this app. But that one feature is so good and simple in predicting golden hour possibilities that I can't do without it.

Don Metz recently introduced me to the Windy app. Its has one of the most attractive main screens which integrates wind direction and speed, radar cloud cover and fire locations. The latter is particularly helpful during hot summers. This screen provides predictive locations for ten days.

The free version provides current wind and radar conditions. The subscription based version costs a very reasonable $19 per year, which is considerably less than many of the other subscription based weather apps. This version offers 12 hour looped radar and satellite, ten day forecasts and more. Windy draws from a number of weather models, allowing you to choose your favorites.

Wind conditions can be shown at various altitudes. Windy is particularly geared towards outdoor sports enthusiasts, showing wave and swell conditions for surfers and boaters, snow depths for snow boarders and updrafts for paragliders. Windy premium has the most extensive map possibilities I have seen. There are 40 choices in all! This includes such valuable maps as Fog, High Clouds, Visibility, Thunderstorms and Wind Accumulations. I no longer need to use a separate Tides app because these can also be shown on Windy. Alerts can be set up for your favorite locations.

There is so much available on Windy that you will want to catch a few YouTube tutorials to help you get the most out of this app. There is a lifetime pre-paid version for about $100. 

Once you get used to this app and you discover the interface possibilities that are most suitable for your purposes, it will become your favorite. It gets the highest marks for completeness, but could be confusing at first due to so many possible options.

If you are just looking for lightning strikes in your area, there are a number of apps that provide this information. To show more than warnings, the paid version must be purchased. Note that recommendations are that photographers stay 6-7 miles from the nearest strike and not in the path of a moving storm cell.

Chasing tornadoes is a popular and dangerous sport among photographers. While most accidents (deaths) come from car crashes, it is important to know the possibilities and behavior of potential tornadoes. Storm by Weather Underground (free) and Radarscope ($10/year) are two apps you should consider. Both come with advertising but have paid versions that remove the ads.

RadarScope is a specialized display utility for weather enthusiasts and meteorologists that allows you view NEXRAD Level 3 and Super-Resolution radar data along with Tornado, Severe Thunderstorm, Flash Flood and Special Marine Warnings, and predicted storm tracks issued by the U.S. National Weather Service. It would be my choice if I were a serious storm chaser.

A full understanding of how storms form and behave is useful for any storm chasers. I recommend going first time with a workshop leader with the equipment and experience to guide you accurately and safely.