This post reviews Dark Sky, an incredibly accurate weather app that notifies you, down to the minute, when it will rain or snow in your area.

Dark Sky for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch quickly and proactively provides you with important weather information tailored to your precise location. Many weather apps, such as Yahoo! Weather (one of my personal favorites, check out our video review here) are focused on offering a ton of detailed information in order to provide you with a deep understanding of what the weather will be like in your area. Dark Sky, on the other hand, takes a very different approach.

This app has what I would describe as a high level of glance-ability. That is to say that you can glance at Dark Sky and get the essential information about the weather that matters to you in the moment. For example, as I tested it out this last week, Dark Sky showed that light rain or drizzle would begin falling my exact location in 5 minutes. Right on cue, 5 minutes later, rain began to fall. What’s more, Dark Sky is proactive. Its push notification system, depending on how you configure it, will notify you automatically when rain or snow is about to fall where you are. Dark Sky’s focus on the moment really comes in really handy by informing you what the weather will be like for the next hour if you’re about to head outside.

Tapping on Dark Sky’s main screen will bring up four different gauges that provide you with wind, humidity, barometric pressure, and visibility information.

Swiping to the left takes you to Dark Sky’s second page, which contains information about the next 24 hours, from precipitation to temperature trends to the time of sunrise and sunset.

Another swipe to the left shows information about the upcoming week. Tapping on any day reveals more a detailed precipitation forecast.

Dark Sky also contains a great visual weather map. Tapping Map on the main screen will show a beautiful radar view of precipitation in your area, or the world if you choose to zoom out. Tapping the play button will animate the map allowing you to see fronts as they sweep across the region.

There is also a temperature map that lets you see how the temperature will change throughout the week.

Tapping on Notifications on Dark Sky’s main screen will bring up a slider that lets you choose how often the app will actively notify you about incoming rain or snow. The spectrum of options ranges from None, to Heavy Rain Only, to Moderate Rain, to Light Rain, and finally to Any Rain.

Dark Sky’s strengths are numerous, but I think there are two attributes that really set this app apart from other weather apps available on the App Store. The first is its insanely accurate weather prediction coupled with its notification system. Dark Sky’s reliability ensures that I always know what to expect when I step outside my front door. The second is how glance-able the app is. That is to say, Dark Sky has a good balance of providing you with useful information that is easy to understand and quick to digest.

If you’re looking for an app that will give you every last bit of information about the weather in your general area for the next week or more, you may want to look elsewhere. But if the idea of having a personal weather station in your pocket that proactively provides you with the info you need in the moment is appealing, Dark Sky is by far your best option.

Dark Sky is available on the App Store for $3.99. For more information on the app, check out Dark Sky’s website.