FishWeather: Marine Forecasts

Review by eFreeware

Most weather apps tell you what the sky is doing over a town. FishWeather is built around a different question: what is happening at the water where you actually fish, including spots well offshore that no municipal forecast covers. That focus is the most distinctive thing about it, and it shapes everything else in the app.

The developer is WeatherFlow, and the app sits in the Weather category on Google Play. It is free to download, carries ads, and offers in-app purchases. It has been around since November 2012 and was last updated in September 2026, with more than 100,000 installs and a 4.8 average from 1,709 ratings.

It is aimed at people who plan time on the water and need conditions rather than a general outlook: anglers working a favorite reef or ledge, boaters plotting a run along the coast, and coastal residents who want a closer read on wind and rain near the shoreline. If your fishing is mostly on small inland ponds and you just want a daily high and low, the depth here is more than the decision requires.

The station network behind the forecasts

The backbone of the app is a private observation network. WeatherFlow has deployed more than 90,000 Tempest Weather Systems, and those stations feed readings into FishWeather alongside public-domain marine reports. The developer puts the combined total at over 150,000 unique stations, a figure that includes offshore and nearshore buoys and lighthouses as well as agency sources such as NOAA and NWS, plus reports from AWOS, ASOS, METAR and CWOP.

What that means in practice is that you can often find a station close to a specific fishing ground rather than settling for the nearest airport reading. The Tempest hardware itself uses haptic rain sensors, a sonic anemometer and a local barometer, which the developer describes as ground-truth observations. I would treat that as a reasonable description of instrumented hardware rather than a guarantee that any single station is calibrated perfectly, but the density of the network is the part that matters most for coastal planning.

The app also layers in public forecast models: HRRR, NAM, GFS, CMC and ICON. Having several models side by side is useful when they disagree, because the spread itself tells you something about how confident the forecast is. On top of those, WeatherFlow runs its own Nearcast forecast, which it bills as AI-enhanced, covering temperature, wind speed and gusts, direction, humidity, dewpoint, precipitation rate and probability, and cloud cover.

Marine conditions, tides and water data

The marine layer is where the app earns its name. You get National Weather Service marine forecasts, tide charts, wave height and wave period, and water temperature. Sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset are included as well, which matters if you time a trip around a tide change or a low-light bite window.

There is a deeper set of statistics for people who like to study a spot before committing to it: historical wind speed, the number of windy days per month based on both average and gust, wind direction distribution, and 24-hour figures set against daylight-only figures. That last comparison is more useful than it sounds, since a location can look breezy on a full-day average while being perfectly workable during the hours you would actually be out.

For anyone whose trips extend past the shoreline, sea surface temperatures and sea currents are also part of the picture. Together with the tide and wave data, that gives a fairly complete read on what the water is doing, not just what the air above it is doing.

Maps, alerts and saved locations

Maps cover live and forecast wind, forecast temperature, radar, satellite, precipitation and clouds, along with nautical charts. The developer says the wind flow map is built from live readings from its own systems and refined with current station reports and quality control, which is the kind of detail that separates a wind map from a generic animated layer. Map views can also be tailored to priority activities for anglers and boaters, so the most relevant layers are the ones you see first.

Alerts are handled through customizable thresholds, and notifications can go out by email, text message or inside the app. The developer offers this alerting through customizable thresholds, which is worth noting because threshold-based notifications are often the feature apps put behind a paywall. Being able to set your own limits, rather than accepting a fixed warning level, is what makes this useful for a specific boat and a specific stretch of water.

Location management is built around a favorites list of stations, so the spots you check constantly stay within reach instead of being re-found every time. The September 2026 release also added French to the Complete Report, along with bug fixes and faster nautical maps.

What the memberships add

FishWeather is free to download and supported by ads, and it also offers in-app purchases. Paid tiers come in three levels: plus, pro and gold, each unlocking more stations and forecast spots. The top two tiers reach hurricane-proof professional stations that WeatherFlow Networks runs with partners in high-risk coastal areas.

Tempest staff meteorologists write the professional forecasts that the upper tiers unlock, with detailed discussions for regions worldwide. For someone deciding whether to run offshore, a written discussion from a meteorologist can be more informative than a number on a chart, because it explains the reasoning and the uncertainty behind the call.

The app also extends the on-the-water data with sea surface temperatures, sea currents, detailed historical wind statistics and historical wind speed averages by year. If you own a Tempest Weather System for your backyard, its data can be displayed inside FishWeather as well.

How it compares with other weather tools

A general-purpose weather app is built for a broad audience, and that shows in what it prioritizes: daily highs, a rain chance and a weekly outlook. FishWeather goes the other way, trading breadth for marine specificity. Tides, wave period, sea surface temperature and station-level wind readings are the point here, not extras buried in a submenu.

Wind-focused apps are the closer comparison, since they also lean on station data and animated maps. The difference with FishWeather is the marine framing around that wind data: nautical charts, NWS marine forecasts, water temperature and currents sit alongside the wind layers rather than in a separate product. If your planning revolves around the water, having those in one place saves switching between tools.

The trade-off is that all this density comes with a learning curve. A casual user who wants a quick answer may find the station lists, model comparisons and historical statistics heavier than necessary. Someone who plans trips around conditions, by contrast, will likely appreciate having the detail available without hunting for it.

A focused tool for planning time on the water

FishWeather does one job thoroughly: it tells you what the weather and water are doing at the places you fish. The combination of a large proprietary station network, public marine sources, multiple forecast models and a marine-specific map set is what makes it more than a repackaged forecast feed. The free threshold alerts and the favorites list are the features I would expect most users to lean on first.

The caveats are straightforward rather than hidden. The app carries ads, it sells plus, pro and gold memberships, and some of the richer station access and professional forecast content sits behind those tiers. The depth that makes it valuable also makes it busier than a simple weather app, and that will not suit everyone.

I would suggest it to anglers, boaters and coastal property owners who plan around tides, wind and wave conditions and want station-level detail for specific spots. If you need a quick forecast for a backyard barbecue, a general weather app will do the job with less to read.

What's new in version 5.0

Enjoy improved nautical map performance, bug fixes, and new French localization now available in the Complete Report.