Your iPhone's Weather app has a hidden setting that tells you exactly when it's going to rain — it's off by default so don't assume you're using it

Weather app on iOS 16 and macOS Ventura
(Image credit: iMore)

When Apple bought Dark Sky, one of the best iPhone weather apps on the planet, back in 2020 many users of the beloved application were left wondering how Apple would incorporate all of its features into the stock Weather app.

One of those features was Dark Sky’s incredible ability to tell you that it was about to rain just before the first drizzle hit your forehead. Last year Apple added Next-Hour Precipitation to the Weather app but it’s off by default, so many users have been missing out.

Here’s how to enable Next-Hour Precipitation in the Weather app on your iPhone so you never get stuck in the rain again.

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iPhone 15 Pro | $999 at Apple

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Rain rain go away

I live in beautiful rainy Scotland and hadn’t received a rain notification from the Weather app in over a year. I had presumed the setting was turned on by default and that it couldn’t keep up with Scotland’s intermittent rain starting and stopping every two minutes. Either that or the feature itself was just useless across the globe. Turns out you might think it’s on but it could be disabled. Here’s how to turn it on:

  1. Open Weather
  2. Tap the menu button in the bottom right corner 
  3. Tap the three dots in the top right corner
  4. Select Notifications
  5. Toggle on Next-Hour Precipitation for Current Location

Underneath these settings, you can also enable Next-Hour Precipitation for any of your saved locations. Additionally, there’s a Severe Weather warning alert option that will make sure to notify you if a storm is brewing.

I loved Dark Sky and had thought Apple had just messed up one of the app’s best features. Instead, it turns out that you need to make sure it’s enabled correctly to get the benefit of knowing when rain is coming, even when you’ve yet to feel a drop of water. For somewhere like Scotland this feature is a life-saver considering you can leave the house in sunglasses and a t-shirt in the summer heat only to be hit with torrential rain before you get to the end of your street.

John-Anthony Disotto
How To Editor

John-Anthony Disotto is the How To Editor of iMore, ensuring you can get the most from your Apple products and helping fix things when your technology isn’t behaving itself. Living in Scotland, where he worked for Apple as a technician focused on iOS and iPhone repairs at the Genius Bar, John-Anthony has used the Apple ecosystem for over a decade and prides himself in his ability to complete his Apple Watch activity rings. John-Anthony has previously worked in editorial for collectable TCG websites and graduated from The University of Strathclyde where he won the Scottish Student Journalism Award for Website of the Year as Editor-in-Chief of his university paper. He is also an avid film geek, having previously written film reviews and received the Edinburgh International Film Festival Student Critics award in 2019.  John-Anthony also loves to tinker with other non-Apple technology and enjoys playing around with game emulation and Linux on his Steam Deck.

In his spare time, John-Anthony can be found watching any sport under the sun from football to darts, taking the term “Lego house” far too literally as he runs out of space to display any more plastic bricks, or chilling on the couch with his French Bulldog, Kermit. 

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