FOX 13 Tampa: SkyTower Weather

Review by eFreeware

FOX 13 Tampa: SkyTower Weather is the mobile weather app from WTVT, the Fox station serving Tampa Bay, published by Fox Television Stations. It is free to install and supported by advertising. The pitch is straightforward: the station's own radar and forecast team, packaged for a phone.

What gives me reason to look at it is the radar. SkyTower Radar is the feature the developer leads with, and it is presented as an interactive map you can zoom into down to your neighborhood, with storm tracks and severe weather alerts layered on top. For anyone living through a Florida storm season, that combination of a local radar sweep and warnings on the same screen is the practical core of the app.

More than 100,000 installs and a 4.0 average across 2,968 ratings suggest a settled audience rather than a new arrival. The app has been on Google Play since July 2014 and was last updated in June 2026, so it is a long-running product that still receives attention. I would treat it first as a Tampa Bay tool and second as a general weather app, because that is how it is built.

What SkyTower Radar actually shows you

The radar map is the centerpiece, and the developer describes it as interactive: you can zoom in to the level of your own neighborhood and watch storm tracks move across the region. Severe weather alerts appear on the same map, so a warning polygon and the cell that triggered it sit together rather than in separate screens. That is the sort of layout that helps you judge whether a storm is heading for you or sliding past.

Radar, hourly conditions and the 7-day outlook sit together in one scrolling view. I like that choice for a phone, because it means you can check current conditions and the rest of the week without hunting through menus. The radar is the reason to open the app, but the scroll gives you the context around it.

The developer is not pitching this as a national radar product, and the framing throughout is Florida weather. If your interest is in that region, the local focus works in your favor; the same focus shapes what the app is designed to do well.

Forecasts, alerts and hurricane season

Beyond the radar, the app carries hourly and 7-day forecasts, and the developer says it uses integrated GPS to give conditions for wherever you happen to be. That matters in a region where the weather can differ sharply between the coast and inland areas an hour's drive apart. You also get severe storm warnings and lightning alerts pushed to you, which the developer presents as an early warning system for staying safe during storms.

Video is the other significant piece. Meteorologists from FOX 13 file video forecasts inside the app, and the developer points out that these remain available during power outages, when a television set is not an option. During hurricane season, MyFoxHurricane provides tropical updates and storm paths. Between the alerts, the video and the tropical tracking, the app is built around the idea that you want to know what is coming before it arrives.

There is a lighter side too. You can save favorite locations anywhere in the world, which is useful if you keep an eye on family elsewhere, and you can send your own weather photos and videos to FOX 13. The sharing feature is a small thing, but it fits a local station's relationship with its audience.

What the app asks of you

The app is free, with no in-app purchases. It does contain advertising, so you are trading a bit of screen space for a product that costs nothing to install.

The main requirement is geographic interest. SkyTower Radar is a Tampa Bay radar, and the forecasts, alerts and video come from a Tampa Bay station. Someone in the market gets the full benefit; someone outside it would be relying mostly on the saved-locations feature and the general forecast information. The app carries an Everyone content rating, and with over 100,000 installs the audience is likely concentrated where the station broadcasts.

The other thing to weigh is that this is one source among several. The app leans on the station's own radar, meteorologists and hurricane feed, which is a coherent package. That is a reasonable design for a local news app, and it is worth understanding before you install.

Getting the most from it during storm season

If you live in the Tampa Bay area, the sensible approach is to treat the alert settings as the first thing to sort out. Severe storm warnings and lightning alerts are only useful if they reach you, and the app is built to deliver them quickly. Once those are in place, the radar becomes the screen you check when a warning arrives, zooming to your neighborhood to see how the track lines up with where you are.

The saved locations are worth setting up early as well, particularly if you have people you care about in other parts of Florida or further afield. Having those places a tap away means you can compare conditions without retyping anything. During hurricane season, the MyFoxHurricane tracks give you the wider picture while the local radar fills in the detail near home.

The meteorologist videos are a good fallback when the power goes out. Keeping the app installed through the season rather than only during an active storm is the more practical habit, because alerts and forecasts are most useful before the weather turns.

A local radar app that knows its market

FOX 13 Tampa: SkyTower Weather does one thing with conviction: it puts a Tampa Bay station's radar, forecasts, alerts and meteorologists in one free app. The interactive map, the hourly and 7-day views, the lightning and storm warnings, the video forecasts and the hurricane tracking all point in the same direction. For residents of the area, that is a genuinely useful combination, and the 4.0 average from nearly 3,000 ratings suggests it has found its footing over the years.

The trade-offs are equally clear. Ads come with the free download, and the radar and forecasts are built around one market. If you live in Tampa Bay and want a local station's weather coverage on your phone, this is a reasonable app to install and keep through storm season. If you are looking for a general-purpose weather tool for the whole country, the local focus will shape what you get from it.