Ex-Dark Sky Team Launches Acme Weather, Promising a Smarter Forecast
The creators of Dark Sky, the weather app acquired by Apple in March 2020, are back in the forecasting arena. Their latest venture, Acme Weather, is designed to deliver more accurate weather predictions while offering a playful twist with unique alerts for rainbows and sunsets.
Unlike traditional weather apps, Acme Weather supplements its main forecast with multiple alternate predictions, giving users a clearer picture of uncertainty and variability.
Leveraging Advanced Data for Reliable Forecasts
In an introductory blog post, Adam Grossman, co-founder of Dark Sky, explained that Acme Weather combines “different numerical weather prediction models, satellite data, ground station observations, and radar data,” making its forecasts “fairly reliable.”
The app also displays alternate forecast lines as gray markers on its graphs, giving users insight into other potential outcomes.
“Forecasts are often wrong — it’s the weather, right? It’s one of the hardest things to predict,” Grossman told TechCrunch. “Our biggest pet peeve with a lot of weather apps is you just get their best guess, and you don’t know how certain they are.”
He added that understanding alternative scenarios is especially helpful for planning around major events:
“I find it most useful for winter storms, where, maybe the storm starts out in the morning, and you’re going to get snow, but maybe there’s also a possibility it holds out a little bit later — to the afternoon — in which case it’s rain. Being able to just see that right there on the timeline gives you this intuitive sense of whether all the models agree, and you’re getting snow, or do half of them say snow and half of them say rain?”
A Tool for Developers and Consumers
At Dark Sky, the team monetized their weather data through a developer API. After the acquisition by Apple, they contributed to WeatherKit, which allows developers access to Apple’s weather data via subscription. While it’s not yet confirmed if Acme Weather will offer a developer API, the app itself is priced at $25 per year, with a two-week free trial.
“Most of our time has been spent on building our own forecast — our own data provider, in a way. And this lets us do things like build multiple forecasts … [and] create any map we want, rather than having to rely on a third-party map provider,” Grossman said.
Acme Weather offers a wide range of maps at launch, including radar, lightning, precipitation totals, wind, temperature, humidity, cloud cover, and hurricane tracks. A Community Reports feature allows users to share local weather conditions in real time.
Fun, Customizable Notifications
Building on Dark Sky’s reputation for pinpoint rain predictions, Acme Weather goes further. The app provides standard alerts, including rain, lightning, severe weather, and community reports, while also experimenting with playful notifications, such as rainbow and sunset predictions through its Acme Labs section.
Users can tailor notifications to their preferences, focusing on events like wind, UV index, or the probability of rain within the next 24 hours.
“I absolutely love Apple … but as a big company, it’s difficult to try weird, new, experimental ideals. If you have a billion users, mistakes are costly. There’s long software development cycles, there’s a lot of stakeholders,” Grossman told TechCrunch. “This idea of being able to try a bunch of things, I think, is interesting.”
Team and Availability
Acme Weather is currently available on iOS, with an Android version in the works. The small, bootstrapped team is led by co-founders Josh Reyes, Dan Abrutyn, and Adam Grossman, and combines former Dark Sky members with new hires.
The app’s approach—blending accurate forecasting, multiple model insights, and fun notifications—aims to redefine what users expect from a weather app.
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