It’s that time of year again! Pale and soft, the world screeches to a halt as the white stuff falls from the sky. It’s Snowmageddon, Snowpocalyse, Snowapalooza!

OK, so maybe it won’t affect everyone, but there’s a huge snowstorm passing by Southern Ontario (the centre of the world, amiright?) so we thought it would be a good idea to recount the best weather apps for each smartphone platform.

Android

The Weather Network

There are a lot of great weather apps for Android, but my favourite continues to be The Weather Network. It supports both smartphones and tablets (properly) and has incredibly accurate information, down to the square kilometre, for Canadian addresses.

It also reports any inclement weather alerts in easy-to-read language, and provides current weather conditions as well as hourly and long-range forecasts. It also contains detailed radar maps of current and predicted systems, and charts showing temperature, wind speeds and precipitation levels over time.

While the widget may need some work, and it doesn’t support push notifications, The Weather Network is your best bet for an all-round weather experience on Android.

Download The Weather Network [free, ad-supported]

Honorable Mention:

Eye In the Sky [free] [paid] – a gorgeous app that lacks the full feature set of TNW but makes up for it by adhering to Holo guidelines.

Notification Weather [free] [paid] – a weather app that lives in your Jelly Bean notification bar. It doesn’t get much Android than this.

iOS

Weather Underground

It may not be the prettiest on the platform, but Weather Underground continues to be one of the most functional free weather apps available for iOS. It’s fast, with an extremely usable start page that combines current conditions, a short-range forecast and a navigable radar in one screen.

Then there are areas for hourly weather, a more extensive map, and Twitter updates based on your region. It even has tropical storm advisories and ski reports built into the app.

Ultimately, because Weather Underground supplies data from its own extensive network of weather stations, the information is always accurate.

Download Weather Underground for iOS [free, ad-supported]

Honorable Mention:

Swackett [free with in-app purchases] – a rather unorthodox weather app, it combines current conditions and forecasts with a series of faceless models called Peeps that wear the right outfits for the climate. Strange, but oddly intriguing.

Solar [$1.99] – gorgeous and gesture-based, Solar for iPhone is definitely minimalist but provides a blank canvas on which to pinch, double-tap and swipe your way to contentment.

Windows Phone

Weather Flow

One of the best examples of how beautiful Windows Phone apps can be, Weather Flow utilizes the Metro interface to good effect. With a recent update it also supports lock screen backgrounds and weather updates, and the full-size live tile is gorgeous.

Download Weather Flow for Windows Phone. [$1.99 with a 3-day trial period]

Honorable Mention:

Amazing Weather HD [$1.99 with free trial] – another beautiful Windows Phone weather client, the interface is a little more graphics-focused than Weather Flow, but doesn’t have the same amount of overall polish. It’s also not as fast, but has been updated recently to support Windows Phone 8 features like lock screen backgrounds.

The Weather Network [free, ad-supported] – not quite as up-to-date as the above two apps, but it has arguably better data for Canadians. No Windows Phone 8-specific features.

BlackBerry

Accuweather

A well-designed and highly-polished launch app for BlackBerry 10, Accuweather provides all the details you need in one screen. It even displays the current weather conditions in an Active Pane on the multitasking menu. It has accurate maps, precipitation details and more. A must-download.

Download Accuweather for BlackBerry 10 (and legacy BB devices) [free, ad-supported]

Honorable Mention:

The Weather Network [free, ad-supported] – excellent free weather app for Canadians. It may not have the same feature set as its iOS and Android counterparts, but it does the job.

The Weather Channel [free, ad-supported] – despite being built as a native BlackBerry 10 app, The Weather Channel achieves a nice blend of unique style and practical usage.