Dark Sky team announces Acme Weather app, promising radar, alerts and hurricane tracking

The developers behind Dark Sky announced today that they are returning with an iPhone app called Acme Weather, pitching radar and lightning maps, rain and snow totals, hurricane tracks and customizable alerts that aim to reduce uncertainty in forecasts. An Android version is “forthcoming,” the team said in an announcement covered by Fast Company.

Dark Sky earned a fierce following for what Fast Company called its “uncanny ability to tell you when to expect rain, down to the minute.” Apple’s acquisition of Dark Sky “six years ago” and the subsequent folding of its features into Apple’s native Weather app left many users disappointed; Fast Company wrote that “the integration was never quite the same, though, and it seemed as if the magic of Dark Sky was lost. Now, however, the team behind the app is hoping lightning strikes twice.”

In a blog post quoted by Fast Company the developers positioned Acme Weather as the product of long experience: “We’ve been making weather apps for 15 years, from Dark Sky to Apple, and this is the culmination (the acme?) of everything we’ve learned along the way,” they wrote. “It’s the weather app we’ve always wanted, and always wanted to build.”

Acme’s announced features are explicit and wide-ranging. The team says the app will include interactive maps with radar and lightning overlays, forecasts of rain and snow totals, hurricane tracking and cloud-cover visualizations. It will send alerts “when weather is approaching” and offers customizable notifications for specific user interests, including rain, nearby lightning, the possibility of a rainbow or an “especially striking sunset,” according to Fast Company’s report.

Media coverage of the announcement included an image caption in TechRadar that described “Two smartphones showing forecast readings in the Acme Weather app,” suggesting the developers are already preparing promotional assets. David Pierce mentioned the return in The Verge’s Installer No. 117 newsletter, calling it a “new-old weather app” as part of his weekly technology roundup.

Acme re-enters a crowded field in which other apps emphasize different strengths. PCMag notes The Weather Channel is “slick and capable” and provides hourly and daily forecasts, while Weather Underground offers detailed storm tracking and a “respectful privacy policy.” Sites compiling app options note AccuWeather’s trip-planning features and minute-by-minute precipitation updates, CARROT Weather’s personalization and unique reporting style, and Plume Labs’ focus on real-time local air quality. Those comparisons set the bar Acme will face if it hopes to reclaim Dark Sky’s loyal audience.

The announcement left several basic facts unspecified. Fast Company and related coverage did not include a launch date, pricing model, the company entity behind Acme, or which weather data sources and models the app will use. Those details will be central to assessing whether Acme can reproduce Dark Sky’s combination of accuracy, timeliness and user trust.

If Acme matches the precision and clarity that once defined Dark Sky, it could reshape how consumers prepare for severe weather and routine decisions alike. At the same time, renewed attention to location data and alerting raises familiar questions about privacy, data sources and the commercial model for real‑time forecasting. Reporters will be following up for release timing, pricing and technical details as the developers roll out the app.