Whether weather is always on your radar or merely a passing front of occasional interest, having an on-demand eye on the world around you is one of the most powerful slices of sorcery you can set your sights on today.
And this week, I want to introduce you to a worthwhile new weather app I recently encountered that’s decidedly different from the others. It isn’t meant to replace whatever weather app you’re already using, whether that’s the one that came preinstalled on your phone or another favorite you’ve found over time (maybe even one that serves up the forecast with a hilarious side of sass​?).
Rather, it serves one super-specific purpose—and serves it impressively well. And it might just be worth your while to keep around as a complement to whatever other weather wesource resource you’re using.
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Your personal precipitation station
Most weather apps aim to do it all—to be your one-stop spot for every manner of weather info you could possibly wonder about.
This week’s Cool Tool is more of a specialist. It does just one extremely specific weather-related thing, but good golly, does it do it well.
➜ The app is called Precip​. Any guesses about its purpose?
If you said it knits you sweaters whilst preparing delightfully steamy stews, (a) excellent guess—but (b) unfortunately, that isn’t correct.
Precip, as perhaps might’ve been your next guess following sweaters ‘n’ stew, measures the rain and other precipitation around you.
- It isn’t offering up a forecast like most weather apps, in other words.
- It’s actually telling you how much moisture came down in any given area—over any time period you want.
- And it lets you zoom into a narrow area for supremely detailed and precise info, too, even going down as far as to a specific address.
Precip shows you precise precipitation totals for any area you open.
There’s just one asterisk: Precip’s data is limited to the U.S. and Canada, at least for the time being. (Sorry, international pals!)
⌚ If you’re in one of those areas, though, it’ll take you all of a single minute to start using:
- For the best and most robust experience, you’ll want to snag the mobile app—available ​on Android​ as well as on iOS​.
- You can also check rainfall totals by zip code on the Precip website​, but you won’t be able to zoom in any further to exact locations or to access any of the more advanced data.
In the apps, you can search by city, zip code, or street address, and you can see rain totals from the past 12, 24, or 48 hours. You can also save specific locations and then easily track their rain totals over time.
You can track rain totals from locations down to a specific street address.
Precip offers even more info as a part of its premium subscription, for 20 bucks a year and up. But the app’s free version is plenty powerful, and odds are, it’ll be all you need. (That version also doesn’t even seem to have any ads present, as far as I’ve seen so far.)
It’s like having your own personal rain gauge on the ground—only it exists entirely in your purse or pocket, all inside your favorite device.
Not too shabby, I’d say.
- Precip is available on the web​ in a limited form or in a native ​Android app​ and iOS app​ for a more complete experience.
- It’s free at its base level, with optional subscriptions starting at $20-a-year for a variety of extra abilities.
- The apps do require you to sign in with an email address to use many of their features, but they don’t require any other personal info—and the developers say they don’t share any data with anyone.
Check out my free Cool Tools newsletter for even more useful software surprises—starting with a standout audio app that’ll tune up your days in some delightful ways.
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