Marine weather on iPhone

In a previous post about my favorites apps for iPhone, I cited two weather apps : La Chaine Météo, very good general weather application from Meteo Consult, and iSailing Weather that offers maps of sea-based weather GRIB files from British origin.

Weather France has finally added its own free app, offering its full range of forecasts, including marine weather reports in text format.

Shipping forecasts

The " Navy is one of the ten sections accessible by a button in the lower menu bar. The application allows you to configure the menu bar in such a way as to position the "Marine" section in first place.

The forecasts are classified into three main categories : Coastal, Offshore and Ocean Forecasts, plus RFI Forecasts for the North Atlantic and Special Marine Warning (BMS).

Adding Zones to the Favorites Page

Each category includes the names of international marine weather areas. When you first launch the app, you have to add the desired areas by a button [+] on the home page of the " Navy ”. We regret that the choice can not be done using charts with areas to be tapped on the screen. It is actually difficult, if not impossible, locate all areas by their names without having descriptive chart in front. We hope that will be added in future releases.

The shipping forecasts are strictly the same as those distributed by other means of Météo France : radio, Navtex, VHF, facsimile, etc,.

Example of Large Area forecast

Example of Radio France International forecast

Listing Special Marine Warning

The good and the not so good

One year after Météo Consult, French public service comes up to iPhone, and that's fortunate ! He thus became the only French organization to broadcast marine weather forecasts on iPhone. What is less fortunate, on the other hand, It's the lack of stability of the application, prone to frequent crashes.

I didn't take the time to check the other sections, such as the "Mountain" bulletins, but the interface of the general weather for France is very neat, although a little slow to load.

Well what is unbearable, It is the omnipresence of a very invasive advertising. For a public service financed by our taxes, This is frankly unacceptable. In comparison, La Chaine Météo, offered free of charge by a private company, imposes much more discreet and quite acceptable publicity. I do not think that this will redress our country's budget deficit !