The creators of Dark Sky, who sold their acclaimed forecasting app to Apple in March 2020, have returned to the consumer market with a new product called Acme Weather, promising a more transparent and reliable approach to predicting the weather. Led by Dark Sky co founder Adam Grossman, the team says the new app improves on their earlier work by combining multiple numerical weather prediction models with satellite feeds, radar data and ground station observations, while also presenting alternative forecast scenarios alongside its primary prediction in a bid to help users understand not just what might happen but how certain the forecast actually is.
Grossman explained that one of his long standing frustrations with traditional weather apps is that they typically present a single best guess without revealing how much disagreement exists among forecasting models, whereas Acme Weather displays other possible outcomes as grey lines on its timeline graphs so users can immediately see whether models converge on snow, for instance, or split between snow and rain, an approach he believes is especially useful during volatile winter storms or high impact weather events where small timing shifts can significantly alter outcomes.
Unlike its predecessor, which became famous for hyperlocal rain alerts, Acme Weather expands its scope with a wide range of maps including radar, lightning, rain and snow totals, wind, temperature, humidity, cloud cover and hurricane tracks, while also introducing Community Reports that allow users to share real time conditions to enhance data accuracy, and adding customizable notifications that cover not only standard alerts such as rain and severe weather warnings but also experimental features in an Acme Labs section that predict rainbows or particularly vivid sunsets, with the team stressing that such features will be deployed conservatively given the inherent uncertainty of atmospheric science.
Positioned as a subscription based consumer app priced at twenty five dollars per year with a two week free trial, Acme Weather reflects the founders’ desire to operate independently and experiment more freely than was possible inside Apple, with Grossman noting that building their own forecasting engine allows greater flexibility in creating multiple forecast views and custom maps without reliance on third party providers, while the bootstrapped team, which includes co founders Josh Reyes and Dan Abrutyn alongside former and new staff, plans to release an Android version after the current iOS launch as they seek to rebuild a loyal following in an increasingly competitive weather app market.