British weather rarely does one thing for long. A bright morning turns squally by lunchtime, a shower passes in fifteen minutes, and "light rain this afternoon" turns out to mean two short bursts and a lot of grey. The question is rarely "will it rain today?" It is "can I get to the station before the next shower?"
This guide compares the apps UK iPhone users most often weigh up in 2026: Met Office Weather Forecast, BBC Weather, Apple Weather, CARROT Weather, Acme Weather and Cloudmesh Weather. For each we look at strengths, cost, rain alerts, official warnings and what happens to your location.
Most UK weather arrives from the Atlantic as a procession of fronts and showers, which shapes what you need:
No app is best at all six, which is why many people use two.
The Met Office is the UK's national weather service, and its free app is the most direct route to its forecasts. It covers the next hour out to seven days, with rain and snow probability, feels-like temperatures, wind and gusts, UV, visibility, humidity and air pollution. Interactive maps show rainfall, the last six hours of rain and severe weather, and there are short video forecasts.
Its strongest card is warnings. The app carries the Met Office's own National Severe Weather Warnings with instant notifications, and for the UK nobody else is the authority on those. Its regional pollen forecasts, from March to September, are genuinely useful if you have hay fever.
The trade-off is advertising: the app is free with ads, and £7.99 a year removes them. Its listing focuses on hourly rain probability and rainfall maps rather than minute-by-minute rain alerts.
BBC Weather is free with no adverts in the UK. It gives hourly detail up to 14 days ahead for UK locations and major cities, with chance of precipitation, feels-like temperatures and a Home Screen widget. An optional BBC account syncs up to ten saved locations.
One detail is often misreported. BBC Weather's forecasts are prepared in association with MeteoGroup, not the Met Office; the BBC switched providers in 2018. The warnings in the app, however, are the Met Office's, personalised to your saved locations. So you get official warnings beside a forecast from a different provider, in a clean, familiar, ad-free package. Like the Met Office app, it centres on hourly and daily forecasts rather than minute-level rain timing.
If you have an iPhone, you already have Apple Weather. It is free and covers a lot: a 10-day forecast, next-hour precipitation in supported regions, air quality, maps, severe weather alerts and widgets. For many people it is simply good enough.
A short history note, because people still search for it: Dark Sky made "rain starting in 8 minutes" famous. Apple bought it in 2020, and the Dark Sky app shut down on 1 January 2023.
Its limits are depth and control. Next-hour precipitation depends on region support, so check it works where you live. It is built to be simple rather than configurable; if you want to see how confident a forecast is, the specialist apps go further.
CARROT Weather, from Grailr, is the most characterful app here. Its forecasts come with five personalities, from strictly professional to "overkill", and it has won an Apple Design Award and Apple's App of the Year. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Vision Pro.
The paid tiers turn it into a power tool. Premium, at US$4.99 a month or US$19.99 a year in the US, adds more data sources (including The Weather Channel, AccuWeather and Apple Weather), precipitation and weather-alert notifications, Home and Lock Screen widgets, watch complications, weather maps and full layout customisation. Premium Ultra, up to US$39.99 a year, adds rain, lightning and storm-cell notifications, super-resolution radar and multi-model forecasts. There are also Premium Mini and Premium Family tiers. UK prices differ, so check the listing.
If you enjoy tuning every detail and are happy to subscribe, CARROT is excellent. The main thing to weigh is the recurring cost over years.
Acme Weather is the new app from the creators of Dark Sky. Its best idea is honesty about uncertainty: alongside the main forecast it shows alternate predictions, so you can see how reliable a forecast is. It adds notifications, including custom ones, community reports and maps.
It is free for two weeks, then US$25 a year, or US$50 for a family. Acme says it doesn't store your location history and doesn't use third-party tracking. If you miss Dark Sky, the trial is worth taking.
Cloudmesh Weather is made by Blue Flame Games, the publisher of this blog, so weigh this section accordingly. It is built around the question British weather raises most: when exactly will the rain start, and when will it stop?
It answers that down to the minute for your location and notifies you before rain arrives. Alerts are free, covering rain, severe weather, pressure changes and temperature thresholds, with quiet hours and per-city control; the minute-by-minute rain chart for the coming hour is part of Premium. Behind the forecast, Cloudmesh runs its own blend of 39 weather sources, including radar, national observation networks from about 30 countries and several forecast models. A confidence ribbon shows when those models agree and when they don't.
Around that sit a free live radar that follows your selected city, an air-quality now-cast, the UV index and a pollen-risk estimate (worked out from the weather, not a pollen count). There are 24 Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, from umbrella and commute to what-to-wear, plus about 30 in-app cards for running, cycling, sailing, gardening, laundry and more. On Apple Watch, one screen shows the temperature and when rain starts or stops, with an animated Cloud Buddy whose mood follows the weather. You can also opt in to a community barometer mesh that shares anonymous air-pressure readings.
The free tier covers current conditions, hourly and 10-day forecasts, radar, alerts and a set of cards and widgets for up to two cities. A 7-day trial unlocks Premium, a single one-time purchase rather than a subscription. There is no account.
The honest limitations: Cloudmesh is newer and smaller than anything else here, and it is not an official warnings service. For UK severe weather warnings the Met Office is the authority, so keep it or BBC Weather alongside. For a closer look against CARROT, see Cloudmesh Weather vs CARROT Weather (2026): Rain Alerts, Widgets and Pricing Compared.
| App | Cost | Rain alerts | Warnings | Widgets | Account |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Met Office | Free with ads; ad-free £7.99/year | Not listed (hourly rain chance) | Official Met Office warnings | Not listed | Not listed |
| BBC Weather | Free, no ads in the UK | Not listed (hourly rain chance) | Met Office warnings | Home Screen widget | Optional |
| Apple Weather | Free, built in | Next-hour rain (supported regions) | Severe weather alerts | Yes | None needed |
| CARROT Weather | Free; Premium US$19.99/year; Ultra up to US$39.99/year | Paid tiers | With Premium | With Premium | Not listed |
| Acme Weather | Two weeks free, then US$25/year | Custom notifications | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| Cloudmesh Weather | Free tier; one-time Premium | Free; minute-by-minute chart with Premium | Severe weather alerts | 24 | None |
Prices are from the App Store listings in September 2026; CARROT and Acme quote US prices. "Not listed" means the listing doesn't highlight a feature, not that the app lacks it.
Think about cost over time, too. A yearly subscription looks modest but adds up; a one-time purchase costs more on day one and nothing after; some free apps carry adverts. Then put the answer where you will see it: a rain widget on the Lock Screen or a watch complication turns checking into glancing. For most people, two apps is the sweet spot: one official source of warnings, and one you trust for everyday rain.
Any app that forecasts for where you are must send some version of that location to a forecast service. What differs is precision, retention, whether it is tied to you and whether advertising is involved.
For official UK warnings, keep the Met Office app or BBC Weather. Apple Weather is a capable free default. CARROT Weather suits people who love customisation, and Acme Weather is a thoughtful new take from the Dark Sky team. If your main question is when the next shower starts and stops, and you would rather pay once than subscribe, Cloudmesh Weather is built for exactly that.