About WeatherZ
WeatherZ - pronounced “Weather Zed”, we're British - is an interactive severe-weather platform for the UK: severe-weather, virtual storm chasing and community. It is built around a simple observation - when the weather turns severe, the most useful information combines trusted data with what people on the ground can actually see - and around two things a forecast app cannot give you: a live national storm desk, and a game played on the real weather.
The two big features
Most of WeatherZ is the weather itself. Two features are the reason people stay:
- ChaserZ - virtual storm chasing. A free game played on the real, live British weather, as a season. Place a headquarters on a three-dimensional map of Britain, research and build instruments, forecast where the sky is about to pay, send a fleet there by real roads, and bank the cargo at a depot before a rival takes it. Genuine lightning strikes, rainfall radar, the wind field and the sun are what earn. Anyone can open it and watch the board and the live weather without registering; a free account lets you play.
- The Activity Monitor - the national storm desk. Everything the platform knows, on one live screen: every storm cell the engine is tracking, every lightning strike as it lands, every community report as it is filed, the radar, the warnings in force and the conversation around each cell. It keeps updating while you watch it. A free account opens it.
What else we're building
Every weather app shows you a forecast. WeatherZ is being built for the moments when a forecast isn't enough - when there's an amber warning over your town, a squall line on the radar, or snow that may or may not settle on your commute. The platform combines:
- Live UK rainfall radar with recent history and short-range nowcasting;
- Storm tracking for named storms and developing severe weather;
- Official warning context - what the yellow/amber/red actually means for your area (the warnings themselves always come from the Met Office);
- Community reports, photos and video - moderated, time-stamped ground truth from people in the weather;
- The Activity Monitor and ChaserZ - the live national storm desk and the virtual storm chasing game described above;
- Zedbot, our AI weather assistant, which explains what the data means in plain English - always labelled as AI, always grounded in the data on the page;
- Android and iPhone apps, following the web launch - see the apps page.
Our tagline is Severe-weather, Virtual Storm Chasing & Community - weather as something you take part in, not just consume.
What we believe
- Official warnings are sacred. WeatherZ never issues warnings, never imitates agency branding, and always links to the source. Our job is context, not authority.
- Attribution and honesty about data. Every data source we use is published, with its limitations, on our data sources page.
- No manufactured hype. No fake download counts, no invented testimonials, no sensationalised headlines when a bit of rain is just a bit of rain.
- AI that shows its working. Zedbot content is labelled, dated and sourced - and it will never override official safety guidance.
- Privacy by design. Precise locations stay on your device; published reports show approximate locations only. Details in our privacy policy.
Where we are now
WeatherZ is open. The platform - radar, dashboards, community reporting, live chat and Zedbot - is live and free to use at weatherz.uk, alongside our free UK weather guides. It is still in active development, so expect features to keep arriving; create a free account to post reports and join the chat.
Talk to us
Questions, press enquiries, corrections or ideas - see the contact page. If you're a weather photographer, storm chaser or dedicated local observer, we would particularly like to hear from you: the community is the point.