Best Jet Ski Weather Apps for 2025
What are the best weather apps to use for planning a trip on your jet ski or boat.
Have you have been out on the water, and the weather turned horrible, or you are just having trouble planning the best day to get out? This in depth guide will help you pick the best apps to pick a great day. For a day on the water, when we are testing our Sea Crew life jackets, or finding a day for a photo shoot, it is really important to find a nice sunny day that will be safe for our crew and our models. Below we will dive a little into how weather is forecast, the cost to subscribe to the apps, weather models available for the apps, app features and ease of use.
The apps we use regularly for planning a trip on jet ski or boat are -
Windy
Willy Weather
Weatherzone
Seabreeze
Predict Wind
Higgins Storm Chasing
BOM
Other Notable Apps
Tides AU and AU Tides specifically for tidal forecasts
Swellnet
Gold Coast City Council
Carrot Weather for a bit of a laugh.
Where the Apps get their data
So the first thing to know is that there are different weather organisations around the world that are forecasting weather. These organisations use computer modelling to look at what is the current weather, and forecast what is likely to happen into the future. The data used can include current and past sea temperatures, air temperatures, humidity, wind and rain. This data also includes observations at different levels in the atmosphere, not just at the surface. Forecasters take mathematical equations that explain the physics of the atmosphere around the earth. The weather models use super computers to calculate trillions of calculations per second to analyse this data and calculate the weather into the future.
The BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) has their own prediction model, the Australian Climate Community Earth Systems Simulator abbreviated to ACCESS. Others include ECMWF (European Centre for Medium Weather Forecasts), SPIRE (an innovative company with the largest nanosatellite network in space), UKMO (United Kingdom Meteorological Office), GFS (Global Forecast System). NOAA (Nation Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). ICON (Icosahedral Nonhydrostatic), NAM (North American Mesoscale), HRRR (The NOAA High Speed Resolution Rapid Refresh), WRF8 (developed by the Windy.app's Research and Development team based on WRF [Weather Research and Forecasting] technology for Europe & Asia). Predict Wind also has their own models PWE (Partly using ECMWF) and PWG (Partly using GFS) More later on Predict Wind.
Why is this important? The weather app you use to gauge your forecasts will be using one or more of these models to give you the forecast. The organisations will provide the data as an API (Application Programming Interface), and the app or website will then make fancy graphs and text based on the data. So if the data is not great for your area, you will get less accurate forecasts. It is important to check the models used by the app, and start to see what works for your area. Some apps give the option to pick the model, and if you know this, then you can pick the best information for you.
Also keep these things in mind-
1. It is only a prediction.
2. It is for an area, not your exact location.
When you are out on the jet ski or boating, expect things may change quickly, and conditions may be worse than forecast. That is enough on boring weather data, now let's see which apps provide you the best shiny pages with easy to read information.
Apps are listed below alphabetically
BOM
The Bureau of Meteorology is the Australian authority for weather, and has it’s own app. It is a general app for weather not overly suited to boating, but in this app you can find the same information for tides and wind as you would find on their website. There is also general information about the weather, like sunny or rain forecast, but it is a pretty basic design in the app. There is a radar option if you go to maps, then select rain and radar coverage.
The BOM Website is pretty clean looking and has loads of information. Here is better access than the app for weather radars etc, and I have a shortcut link in my phone to get to the website directly rather than the app. Still even on the website, it is only a 3 day forecast.
Available for phones and tablets IOS and android.
Weather Model Used - ACCESS - The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) uses the Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator (ACCESS), with the ACCESS-G model for global forecasts and the ACCESS-S model for climate forecasts.
Price - Free
Higgins Storm Chasing
Higgins Storm Chasing has become quite popular for general weather forecasting, but more so for their warning of severe weather. It is not a dedicated marine weather app, but with a subscription to the service, you get access to the app on your device, and you get weekly emails for your area. These emails are quite detailed, and when severe weather is approaching they are a vital resource. They also provide videos explaining the weather and are very active with information on facebook. Even if you just follow them on facebook, most people will learn something.
The app gives a brief on the immediate weather as well as wind, daylight and uv index as well as a 5 day forecast. There is also a weather radar and at the bottom of the screen is your access to their member portal, where you can read the 7 day, 1 month and 3 month outlooks. Also in the portal is information for any tropical lows and cyclones.
The Higgins website also has lots of weather information and is the best place to get the link to download the app - Higgins Storm Chasing Website.
Available for phones and tablets IOS and android.
Weather Model Used - Various international models used, but from Jeff Higgins himself “all our forecast text, maps and weather information is produced in house by humans every day”.
Price - Free and Premium Membership for access to the portal is $45.00 annually.
Predict Wind
Created by Jon Bilger who is a NewZealand National sailing champion, olympian and two time Americas Cup winner.
Predict Wind is a well put together app with worldwide coverage, and used by sailors and boaters around the globe. The app opens with a briefing view, showing four times of day with the forecast wind, temperature, sun/rain, UV level, swell and tide. It is easily readable and very tidy. From the menu you can access tables, graphs, maps, weather radars and satellite, moon phases, weather planning, departure planing…. and the list continues. This is a very good boating specific resource.
You can access a lot of the information with the free plan, but not everything, With the free plan you are also limited with the number of saved locations. But I am very impressed with what is available for free, it is well worth a look.
Available for phones and tablets IOS and android.
Weather Models Used - Predict wind has developed two of their own proprietary models, to provide wind forecasts, with PWG and PWE offering high-resolution global coverage weather models, and ECMWF (European Centre for Medium Weather Forecasts), SPIRE, UKMO (United Kingdom Meteorological Office), GFS (Global Forecast System).
Price - Different levels of membership from $0 to Professional access for $42.00 USD monthly.
Seabreeze
Seabreeze was created as a resource by a wind surfer, who wanted a way to know if it was windy before getting to the beach. It is an Australian app with a unique way of highlighting the wind forecast with red and green arrows. He devised a great look with green arrows for get to beach, and red arrows for stay home, because there is no wind (hint - you can reverse the red and green, so green is displayed for low wind). The app also has tides and some weather data, but the highlight of Seabreeze is the ease of checking wind. On your computer you can use the Seabreeze website which is quite good also.
Available for phones and tablets IOS and android.
Weather Models Used - Seabreeze primarily uses the Global Forecast System (GFS) weather model, which is a model from the National Weather Service (NOAA) in the United States.
Price - Free version with adds. $14.99 for no adds.
Weatherzone
Weatherzone is not so much a boating app, but I find it is quite useful for general weather forecasting. I primarily like it for the quick and easy display of rain and temperature forecast. I also quite like the weather radar, easily accessible from the bottom of the app display. The app does have a marine weather section and tides etc, but it’s not a big feature of the app.
Available for phones and tablets IOS and android.
Weather Models Used - Weatherzone runs their own WRF computer model which is used to produce content for the subscription service Weatherzone Pro, and feeds into their Opticast forecasting model. Weatherzone employs a team of meteorologists to offer a meteorological alternative to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).
Price - Different levels of membership including - Free, add free for $5.99 and $5.99 monthly for extra features.
Willy Weather
This app has been on my list for many many years. It has long been an Australian app focused on boating. The app opens straight away with the daily weather, a wind speed graph and below that a rain radar. At the bottom of the screen is easy access to rainfall, wind, moon, tides, swell, sun and UV. Personally I like to use willy weather for the tides. It has so many locations, and I probably find the times on willy weather the most accurate. It is very good for boating weather information, and liked by many on the water.
Available for phones and tablets IOS and android.
Weather Models Used - Willy weather uses the Bureau of Meteorology ACCESS model and the NOAA (Nation Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).
Price - Willy Weather has a free version which gives you mostly everything with a little bit of advertising. $4.00 per month and you get premium features.
Windy
This is truly one of my favourite bang for buck apps. Windy has a fantastic view in the wind view. With a subscription, you can log in on any device, and see forecasts for up to 10 days ahead. If viewing on a PC or Mac visit the Windy website for a look at the different views and weather models. You can easily select between the weather models and altitude. You can also select views of weather radar, satellite, cloud cover, rain & thunder, temperature, waves and more. If you check out Higgins Storm Chasing videos, you will see they use Windy a lot, and get a good run down on how it works.
Available for phones and tablets IOS and android.
Weather Models Used - Windy.app uses a variety of global and regional weather models, including ECMWF (European Centre for Medium Weather Forecasts), GFS (Global Forecast System), ICON (Icosahedral Nonhydrostatic), NAM (North American Mesoscale), HRRR (The NOAA High Speed Resolution Rapid Refresh), WRF8 (developed by the Windy.app's Research and Development team based on WRF technology [Weather Research and Forecasting] for Europe & Asia), and others, to provide weather forecasts, with ECMWF being a principal source. In Australia you also can display the BOM ACCESS models.
Price - Windy has a free version which gives you mostly everything but forecasts are limited to 5 days and weather data is refreshed less than premium. WIndy has had an increase in fees. Premium subscription was $30.99 per year in 2024, and is $37.99 per year in 2025. Premium includes forecasts to 10 days, 1 hour forecast step, higher resolution, ACCESS-C model and more.
Other Notable Apps
Ok, these are a bit left field, or a bit more selective.
Carrot Weather
This app has won awards. It will give you a serve, make jokes and is a bit of a laugh. It is US based, but works for Australia, so just take a look for fun.
Price Free version and from $32.99 USD annually
Gold Coast City Council
If you want to go outside the Gold Coast, this is for you. The app tells you when to put your bins out and many details for contacts including plumbing etc. So why am I bring it up? Thinking of heading outside and wondering what the swell looks like? Well this app currently has 23 Gold Coast beach cameras, surf report and weather. Best of all, it is free. It is an app well worth downloading just for that. You may find other councils offering similar in other areas. More info here.
Price $0
Swellnet
The free version is a little frustrating. Cameras are locked out, and it is full of adds. The swell reports for a few days are good, forecast for more than three days requires a subscription. If you are just wanting to check if you can get outside, and not that interested in surfing, you might find the cameras on GCCC app all you need, and it is free?
Price Free version or full access is $10.99 per month
Tides AU
This is an app primarily for tides. I found there were less locations on here than Willy Weather. The information is a bit older style display, but all right there and easy to read. It also has a pretty neat function if you swipe, it gives you when the next spring and neap tides are.
Price to remove adds is $4.99
AU Tides
AU Tides specifically for tidal forecasts. It is a really nicely displayed view, but just shows tide a days view of sunrise and sunset.
Price to see any tides in the future (past current date) $3.99 per year.
My Personal Favourite Apps.
For me to have a good day on the jet ski with the family, or a photo shoot, I probably start looking about one or two weeks before hand. To look this far in advance, you are going to need a subscription. My personal choice for a subscription is both Windy and Weatherzone, but Predict Wind also is very good. I like the ease of Weatherzone for looking if it is going to rain or be sunny. I also look at Windy to see the wind and swell two weeks out. As the dates get closer, I start using Seabreeze (which I have paid to remove adds) as I really like the arrow graphs, but it only shows a one week forecast (Windy also gives a more detailed view). I keep an eye on the weekly emails I get from Higgins Storm Chasing with my annual subscription. Just before an important day, where we are testing or filming our life jackets, I will also include Predict Wind in my selection.
When taking out our bigger boat, I check the tides on Willy Weather, and use it for ease of getting out from home, locations along our way, and at the destination. Willy Weather is a pretty popular app, some people use it as their go to for everything in weather.
You can check out all these Apps for free trials. I hope this has helped you make a choice for an app or two, and you have a great day on your ski or boat coming up soon. We would also love you to be wearing one of our Sea Crew Life Jackets while you are out there as well. They are designed by us on the Gold Coast, tested to Australian Standards, Certified to AS4758, and come in some great looking colours.Check out our store and home page.
Got an app you think needs mentioning or want some more information, contact us here.
