Riding Weather

Riding Weather provides weather forecasts from the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) for anywhere in the United States. For equestrians, the app calculates the Equine Heat Index (EHI), which is also known as the Horse heat Index. The EHI is equal to the sum of the temperature (in °F) and the relative humidity (in %). The EHI can help you to decide when the weather conditions are appropriate for horseback riding and when conditions might produce heat stress in your horse. Be aware that temperature and humidity are important factors, but hardly the only factors, that can contribute to heat stress in horses and it is incumbent on the rider to take all factors into account. You can use the app as a regular weather by toggling off the display of the EHI.

Riding weather uses two different ways of displaying weather data: When the iPhone or iPad are held vertically (i.e., portrait orientations), you will see a graph view. Slide your finger along the graph to see the conditions -- temperature, feels like temperature, relative humidity, precipitation probability, cloud cover, wind speed, gusts, and direction -- at any particular time. The use can control what appears on the graph by checking or unchecking any condition in the conditions table displayed below the graph. The user can also control the number of days that are plotted on the graph in the Settings screen. A narrative forecast is displayed by tapping the day name at the bottom of the graph. Weather alerts are also displayed and can be read in their entirety but there are no alert notifications when the app is in the background.

When the device is held horizontally (landscape orientation), you will see an innovative "Calendar View" of the weather. Hourly weather is displayed by cells colored according to the selected condition: temperature, EHI, precipitation probability, wind speed, or cloud cover and be selected. When you drag your finger across the table, the conditions for the hour and day beneath your finger are displayed as button captions in the button selector at the top of the calendar. A narrative forecast for the day selected will be show when you lift your finger.

The user can see a rudimentary, unanimated weather radar plot from the NWS for the selected location. However, if radar is your thing, you would be better off using one of the many fine weather apps available for iOS and iPad OS.

The user can select their current location and can also save as many additional different locations as they want by entering a street address, latitude and longitude, or by simply tapping a location on a map. Locations can be renamed, their listing order changed, or erased at the discretion of the user.

Riding weather is as privacy oriented as possible for a weather app that needs to know your location. The app is NOT ad-supported and your location data is never harvested by the app author. The locations you enter are sent to Apple for geocoding and to the NWS to retrieve the forecast data.