Pocket Weather 2.0 Review! I like it...

storyrs' awesome PhatPhinger Skin

There are a number of decent weather programs for your Windows Mobile device. Many feature satellite and weather map animations, statistical display and analyses of current and future conditions, ephemeris data (daily celestial positions), warnings and more. Most of the on-line weather tools I like to use require a decent PC web-browser (or even Pocket IE) to be honest. I only use the mobile apps to do a quick check, like when I'm traveling. Now and then, I review weather programs in one of my blog categories (I was once a full-time weather geek). Most are efffective at presenting basic weather info, but PocketWeather from SBSH Software House is one of the few to break out of this mould. It has an amazing feature-set, now including integration with PocketBreeze. The good news for you comes in the form of being able to monitor your task and appointments on the today screen presented with integrated weather info. The good news for me is that I finally found a tool that does weather trend graphing, and real METAR surface observations and TAFs...

There was nothing of consequence to report during the install/setup of Pocket Weather other than it has some clever integration features with PocketBreeze, and I recommend them together. PocketBreeze is an agenda-like today plug-in on steroids, presenting your appointments, tasks and contacts in a scrollable list that eats up home screen real-estate in a hurry (if you use WM PIM features at all). So much so, that I had to 86 my other plug-ins, and set them up as tabs inside of PocketBreeze. Sadly, my favorite Today application, Mobile Shells' Home tab, which has a recently launched programs list would not appear inside of PocketBreeze. However, Pocket Plus worked just fine as a plug-in to PocketBreeze, and then Mobile Shells' application launcher was only a soft-key away. The PW-PB integration amounts to a forecast condition (and temps) presented by weather symbols appearing on the header bar for each day in your home screen agenda, based on the forecast weather for your home station (the home station is assigned in PocketWeather..see above). Tapping the symbol will open the weather console in PocketWeather.

PocketBreeze Integration

Alternate Today Views

PocketWeather has a ton of views and settings, and is highly configurable. Major cities will likely have the full range of products from animated radar and satellite to real-time traffic cam images. Imagery can be looped and zoomed. I configured my local station near my house by zip code, and also added additional local stations by browsing the list of regional locations. You can add custom data sources, and even query google map sources, but the Google map source downloaded terrain maps. The today plug-in can be adjusted to show multiple stations simlutaneously or in tabs, and current weather conditions in text form in various layouts. Custom icons can even be incorporated or added.
Default Console View

Radar Loop

Forecast Overview

WebCam images

The default weather console in PocketWeather presents a tableized depiction of the forecast and current conditions, with mucho tweakability to change weather views to be more detailed. There are a number of neat features, but namely the METAR views, and Compare feature were ones that I loved. The METAR view is almost like a micro-scale surface weather analysis chart for the stations in the local area around the locale selected. I really like being able to view the raw TAF (Terminal Aerodrome Forecast) and METAR surface observations. The METAR and TAF reports often will reveal interesting weather information that may not be discovered by simply perusing local news channels. For instance, in the screenshot below, you can see that several stations are reporting gusty winds (e.g. Washington Dulles reporting winds out of the northwest at 22 gusting to 30 knots). However if you go towards the end of the reports in the RMK section of the surface observations, you will note the actual PK WND recording during the preceding hour is as high as 34 knots, indicating the wind is actually gusting beyond what was reported at the the time of observation. Lots of added weather phenomena including direction and distance from the station are reported in remarks (Thunderstorms, Lightnig, tornado, etc.). More information on deciphering METAR codes can be found at the following link

METAR Display

Detailed View

Adding trend graphs to the compare feature is also an exciting feature for an ex-weather guy. One of my favorite tools when I was a weather dude myself was little graphical displays called meteograms, or time/distance vertical plots. Virtually any weather data parameter could be plotted out over time and space in the vertical between stations. Significant upstream wind profile, pressure, moisture, and humidity changes could be characterized in this manner. Some of our earliest weather tools--still in use even when I joined the military (i.e. the baragraph, and RO-362 Wind Recorder)--were real pen and ink graphing machines that recorded weather trends, and were very useful for tracking changes. The trend feature in PocketWeather is only relevant to the compare screen (a small display is indicated in the detail view as well), which indicates forecast conditions and trends between stations. It would be a nice tweak to make it also capable of trending historical observations as well.

Trending

I downloaded a custom skin but did not tweak it, so the icons are the default ones (see below), but if you really want to jazz up your device, the SBSH team has a forum and a healthy skin and icon community for customization of PocketWeather. They also have a skinning guide to get you started. The skin I picked here is one from forum member storyrs', called PhatPhinger and can be downloaded from the SBSH forum.

Custom Skins

Click the link title of this post to learn more about PocketWeather...New users pay $14.95, but of course magazine VIPs get a 15% discount! Users who registered PocketWeather 1.x on or after September 1st 2007 are entitled to upgrade for free.