The new features build on top of the strong existing functionality, which include the core weather forecast features (multiple locations, various forecast time lengths), severe weather alerts, and radar maps (overlay radar, cloud, temperature, feels like, 24-hour rainfall).
The most useful of the new features is personalised alerts, which is branded "my amazing day" to tie in with Nokia's advertising campaigns for its Lumia devices. Alerts are based on fulfilling certain conditions at a certain location at a certain time (am, pm, evening, night). The list of conditions that can be specified include temperature (greater than, less than, range), wind (speed, direction), precipitation (chance of rain), pollen (level), and UV level.
To help get you started a number of alerts templates have been set up in advance (sailing, sunscreen day, pollen, running), but you can also create your own custom alerts. Once an alert has been configured the app will then generate a list of days for which the conditions will be met, based on weather forecast data for the week ahead. A summary of these alerts is shown on the fourth page of main panorama, with a full list available via a simple touch. You can also pin a tile to the Start Screen, which acts as shortcut to the full list of alerts.
A handy extra is the my friends' weather feature (and related my friends alerts), which allow you to easily get forecasts for your friends' locations. Friend data (name, photo, location) is drawn from Microsoft Live and Facebook, though in many cases you'll need to make manual adjustment to the location info.
The most visually impressive new feature is the augmented reality view and the related amazing weather moments. Both of these draw on user submitted photos from The Weather Channel's iWitness initiative, which encourages people to submit weather themed images.
In the case of the augmented reality view the photos are overlayed on a live camera view, positioned according to their geographic location. For the amazing weather moments view same photos are shown in a grid on the main panorama. In both cases tapping on the photo loads the photo full screen, with options to display addition information (time, author, title, comments) and share via social networks.
The app can also be used to submit photos to the iWitness service, which, if they are selected by The Weather Channel's human editors, will then appear in the augmented reality and amazing weather moments views.
Marketplace description:
Experience weather in a new way with The Weather Channel for Windows Phone 7. Our new design brings exclusive features to Nokia users including:
Weather AR – See the weather in a new way
My Friends’ Weather – See how the weather is impacting those closest to you
My Amazing Day – Get personalized weather alerts for the weather that matters to you
The Nokia exclusive update of the Weather app (version 2.0) can be downloaded from the Nokia collection in the Windows Phone Marketplace for free.
The previous version of The Weather Channel app (version 1.16.0) remains available to all Windows Phone devices.