It's Gonna Rain joins a boatload of weather apps already lining the Windows Store shelves and hopes to catch your eye with its simple layout. The Windows Phone app's primary purpose in life is to inform you of impending precipitation in your area, and the intensity of any storms.
There is also a very basic animated radar feature and an equally basic weather forecast. While I would not recommend It's Gonna Rain as a daily weather app for your Windows Phone, it isn't a bad supplemental app for the times should you need a quick glance at the likelihood of rain.
The layout of It's Gonna Rain isn't very complicated and shares the overall simplistic feel of the app. The main page has a button in the center of the screen to tap and note the chance of rain. Along the bottom of the screen are buttons to set your location, refresh the weather data, upgrade the free app ($1.99) and view the help screen.
There is also a three-dot menu at the bottom of the screen that reveals options to change the app's theme, report incorrect weather information, turn the app's sound off and rate/review It's Gonna Rain.
As far as location support is concerned, It's Gonna Rain does support your Windows Phone location services to automatically match the app's location to where you are. You can also manually set the location; It's Gonna Rain only tracks one location at a time.
When you tap the "Is it gonna rain?" button, the app taps into OpenWeatherMap.org and reports on the chances of rain in your area. The free version reports the chances of rain within the next two hours while the upgraded version also offers the chances of rain in the next thirty minutes, the predicted rainfall rate and the nearest rain to your location.
Along with the rain predictions, It's Gonna Rain offers a very basic weather forecast that includes your current conditions and a three-day forecast (extends to 10-day when you upgrade). Reported conditions include the wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, humidity, sunrise/sunset times, the amount of daylight, and a "Feels like..." description.
There is also an animated radar with It's Gonna Rain that is also very basic. The free version has support for the last three radar images in the animation while the upgrade extends this range to the past twenty-four hours. The radar can zoom in by one step but lacks the ability to zoom out. There are no overlays to show states, counties, roads, etc. but a red dot flashes to indicate your current position.
Overall, I like the concept It's Gonna Rain offers, but the delivery is somewhat underwhelming. I would have liked to have seen a more robust weather radar and more extensive forecast reporting. As far as accuracy is concerned, over the past few weeks, the app's rainfall predictions were correct more times than not.
Looking at It's Gonna Rain as a simple to use rain predictor, it does a good job of things. I can see it supplementing a more feature-rich weather app for the times you just want to see the odds of precipitation. The core app is free and to unlock all the features of It's Gonna Rain costs you $1.99 through an in-app purchase.
Download It's Gonna Rain for Windows Phone
