Big Weather

Big Weather is a weather app for macOS that lives in the menu bar. A glance at the menu bar gives you the temperature, and clicking it opens a panel where the days ahead show up as one curve, so you can see when the rain comes in and when it clears without reading a table. The app is designed for people who look up at the menu bar more often than they open a full weather app. It is free on the Mac App Store and requires macOS 15.2 or later, with an optional Premium subscription that adds AI insights, official weather warnings, a 10-day hourly forecast and Apple's weather data. Most people who want to know what the weather is doing are not looking for a full dashboard — they want to know whether it is going to rain, how cold it will get, and whether they need to change their plans. Checking a conventional weather app means opening an application, reading a table of numbers and interpreting rows of hourly data. Big Weather takes a different approach by moving the answer into the menu bar, where it is already visible while you work. Instead of scanning a table, the forecast is drawn as a curve that communicates the shape of the day and of the days ahead. The app is described as ad-free and light on your Mac, opening instantly. The centrepiece of Big Weather is the interactive hourly wave. Run your cursor along the curve and it tells you the temperature and the rain at that hour, so a single sweep of the mouse answers the practical question of when precipitation arrives and when it clears. The free version covers 48 hours of temperature and rain, hour by hour, while Premium extends the same hour-by-hour detail to ten days. The chart is shown with a precision scrubbing tooltip, meaning the exact temperature and rain value for the hour under the cursor is displayed as you move. Because the data is presented as a continuous shape rather than a grid, changes in the pattern — a warming trend, a cold snap, a wet afternoon — are visible at a glance. Alongside the main curve, Big Weather includes a multi-day UV view that shows UV day by day, and a 10-day trend view for the week ahead. The free plan includes UV for today and tomorrow, and a 3-day forecast, together with wind, pressure and humidity. A minimalist design option strips the app back to just the basics for people who want a simpler readout. The app can also be made your own: light or dark appearance, chart or plain text, °C, °F or both, and a keyboard shortcut to open it. Big Weather works wherever you are — it uses your current location or any city in the world, and you can save the places you keep checking and hop between them. New in version 5.0 and part of Premium, AI insights turn the forecast into a sentence. The menu bar tells you what today holds — for example, “Heavy rain from 4PM” — and the panel sums up the week. From Thursday onwards, the summary also covers next week. These insights are written on your Mac by Apple Intelligence, so your location never goes to an AI service. This requires macOS 27 and a Mac with Apple Intelligence; other Macs get the regular summary instead. Also new in 5.0 Premium is official warnings: when a flood, storm or heat warning covers where you are, it sits at the top of the panel exactly as the weather service wrote it, each day it touches gets a marker, and the menu bar gives you a heads-up. Official warnings are available in the US, Canada, Mexico and Europe. Big Weather's approach is to keep the weather one click away rather than one application away. The menu bar element carries the temperature and conditions, and the panel that opens behind it carries the detail, from 48 hours of hourly temperature and rain in the free version to ten days with Premium. Premium also switches to Apple's weather data, which the app describes as usually sharper for your exact spot, and delivers more frequent updates. Family Sharing means a Premium purchase can be shared across your Macs, and Premium buyers can get the app on their other Macs. The app is built to be light on your Mac: it opens instantly and, according to the description, won't show up in the list of things eating your battery. The main benefit of Big Weather is speed of comprehension. The interactive wave removes the need to read a table; the menu bar temperature removes the need to open anything at all; and the AI insights remove the need to interpret the curve when a sentence will do. Official warnings bring severe weather information into the same place, so a flood, storm or heat warning appears in the panel rather than in a separate alert you might miss. Privacy is stated as a benefit too: your location goes to the weather service to get a forecast and that's it — no ads and no profile. Reviews quoted from the Mac App Store describe the app as a terrific menu bar app with clear and concise graphics, and as an essential menu bar tool. Big Weather fits everyday decision-making. If you are deciding whether to walk, cycle or drive, the hourly wave shows exactly when the rain comes in and when it clears. If you are planning a week ahead, the 10-day trends and the AI weekly summary give the shape of the week. If you are concerned about sun exposure, the multi-day UV view covers UV day by day. If you live somewhere with severe weather, official warnings for floods, storms and heat are surfaced at the top of the panel and flagged in the menu bar. If you travel or keep an eye on other cities, saved locations let you hop between them, and the keyboard shortcut opens the panel without reaching for the mouse. Big Weather is for Mac users who want their forecast in the menu bar rather than in a separate app. The free version is described as a proper app, not a trial, and includes temperature and conditions in the menu bar, your location or any city in the world, 48 hours of temperature and rain hour by hour, a 3-day forecast, UV for today and tomorrow, and wind, pressure and humidity — with no ads. Premium costs $1.99 per month or $9.99 per year, with both starting with a month free, or $29.99 once for good. Premium adds 10 days of forecast hour by hour, AI insights for the day and the week (macOS 27), official weather warnings, Apple's weather data, more frequent updates and Family Sharing across your Macs. Big Weather requires macOS 15.2 or later and is distributed through the Mac App Store; the AI insight feature relies on Apple Intelligence on-device. Big Weather is a small, fast macOS menu bar weather app built around one idea: you should be able to see the weather without opening a weather app. It shows the temperature in the menu bar, draws the days ahead as a single curve you can scrub through for hour-by-hour temperature and rain, adds UV day by day and 10-day trends, and — with Premium — sentences of AI insight written on your Mac plus official weather warnings shown word for word. Free covers 48 hours of hourly detail, a 3-day forecast, UV, and wind, pressure and humidity with no ads; Premium extends the horizon to 10 days, adds Apple's weather data and Family Sharing, and supports a one-person shop. It is free to try and takes about a minute to know whether it suits you.