[Navy salad]

My current App (Weather Bug) often shows conflicting forecasts depending on whether you look at hourly or full day forecasts -OR- shows 0% chance of rain even while it is raining hard! I realize there is no perfect weather forecast -- all I'm looking for in an improvement! I prefer an App where there is either tolerable amounts of advertising or where you can pay $4 or $5 per year to remove them. Any suggestions?

[fourteen410]

I've used NOAA's free app for years and had no issues.

[Cyclopath]

Are you using Android or iOS? I've been using Dark Sky, they dropped their Android support.

[awilsondc]

Windy is a great app. Also available via Windy.com. I also use Clear Outside for cloud cover predictions although it's not a totally intuitive interface, but if you can get the hang of it, it can be reliable.

[texasbb]

A forecast is a forecast, not a weather report. ALL forecasts will at times disagree with what's happening outside your window. Forecasts may have taken significant time on a supercomputer to create, so you can't expect them to update in real time when a cloud moves overhead. And yes, different kinds of forecast (hourly, daily summary, medium term, long term) will give different predictions. Apps differ mostly in their interfaces and features; many/most of them draw on the same or similar forecasts.

[thunderhead]

short answer: weather.gov (this is the same as NOAA already mentioned) and mountain-forecast.com are best. The long answer can get very long...

[Jake Robinson]

windy.com (or the app, both free), compare the models. The degree to which the models agree gives you an idea of the confidence you can have in the forecast.

[Cyclopath]

Does anybody know where Garmin Connect gets its forecasts?

[Hiker Mama]

I like the National Weather Service mobile app. I use weather.gov for forecasts on my computer.

[Navy salad]

[texasbb]

[TheWaterboy]

Weatherbug, Mountain Weather Forecast, and NOAA. Take the average of all three. As I saw 2 other people say, a forecast is still just a statistical inference of what might happen. NOAA is usually the most accurate since they have the most data points to work with. Most weather data in the US comes from NOAA and is shared with weather broadcasts around the country. The only thing is, if an app or news channel differs from NOAA then they have included data NOAA did not have access too. The more reports you look through, and average out, the closer to the real answer you'll get. Find as many as you can and average them out starting 2-3 days before a trip. It works for me 90% of the time.

[Navy salad]

Thanks all for your input and suggestions! To answer questions, I'm using an Android phone. I'll give Windy a try, since I've heard many good things about it.