Weather Whiskers, A Weather App We Probably All Need

Welcome to the  fifty-sixth installment of  Queer Your Tech with Fun, Autostraddle’s nerdy tech column. Not everything we cover will be queer per se, but it will be about customizing this awesome technology you’ve got. Having it our way, expressing our appy selves just like we do with our identities. Here we can talk about anything from app recommendations to choosing a wireless printer to web sites you have to favorite to any other fun shit we can do with technology.

Header by Rory Midhani

queer-your-tech-header_FINAL_640web

Okay, so I know weather apps sound blah. I mean, it just tells you the weather. Blah blah blah. Except this one is different. This is a weather app that made me laugh until I actually had tears squeezing themselves from my eyes.

That’s because this weather app, Weather Whiskers, is weather told in LOL Cats.

That’s right. Weather. Cats.

I’ll pause for a hot second while you run and download this free app immediately. Here’s the iOS version. Here’s the Android one (also a Widget, fyi!).

All the text is in LOL speak. So remember when the weather was pretty universally crappy on the East Coast the night before Thanksgiving? Here’s what Weather Whiskers told me was going on.

snoze

I hate the snow, yet somehow this made it better.

I liked it so much that I immediately emailed Marie McGwier, a front-end designer for Mindspark, the person primarily responsible for the Weather Whiskers kitteh photoshopping and the person who emailed to alert me of its existence. And she definitely agreed with me that Snoze made the world just a tiny bit more bearable:

It’s a really good way to laugh even when you’re staring into an overwhelming weather forecast, like hail or snow! It’s cool, you know, it’s getting cold but you’re still going to geek out when you check your weather app.

cold-do-not-want

That really was a big inspiration of the project – the idea that something as simple and routine as a weather app could be presented in a way that goes hand in hand with pop culture, memes, and a generally feel good time. My boss, Jim, and my coworker Teresa (you can find them in the “Meet teh team” section!) are cat people, so I think the conclusion of “We have to do weather. But cats,” came really naturally to them. Teresa is a LOL-Speak/Pun master, so she was super eager to really get into the 100% use of LOL-speak all throughout the app and all over our marketing. Check out the twitter I’ve been running, @WeatherWhiskers – you can see it’s damn dedicated! We’ve both enjoyed the hell out of spending hours and hours crafting scenes and giving cats weather appropriate clothing to wear. Jim is really into the smallest details of the app as well as the original overall idea dude – notice the spinner when you pull down to refresh the weather? He brings that kind of detail into it, making this app as purrrfect as pawsible.

And let me tell y’all, this is pawsibly the most purrrfect weather app I’ve seen since Swackett.

I-iz-catcicle

You can remove the ads for 99 cents, but otherwise this is completely free. And just as an FYI, Mindspark is hiring an iOS developer – and McGwier is very much hoping a wonderful queer designer will apply: “I’d love to have another queer woman in my workplace!”

And this is what happens when you take your device into an area of your girlfriend's parents house that doesn't get reception!

And this is what happens when you take your device into an area of your girlfriend’s parents house that doesn’t get reception!

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

A.E. Osworth

A.E. Osworth is part-time Faculty at The New School, where they teach undergraduates the art of digital storytelling. Their novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright, about a game developer dealing with harassment (and narrated collectively by a fictional subreddit), is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing (April 2021) and is available for pre-order now. They have an eight-year freelancing career and you can find their work on Autostraddle (where they used to be the Geekery Editor), Guernica, Quartz, Electric Lit, Paper Darts, Mashable, and drDoctor, among others.

A.E. has written 542 articles for us.

66 Comments

  1. My roommate and I have downloaded this app while holding hands (because she indulges in my childlike whims and fancies), 8tracks is winning with Pat Benatar, and I’m catching up on The Walking Dead. Fucking right, my Saturday as a blanket burrito/couch potato is shaping up to be quite enjoyable. Mhmm.

    • That article is awesome – thanks for linking :) I’ve been using the Duolingo app to practice my Spanish but now I might have to check out CatAcademy. Now I have two cat apps to download…

    • Thanks for linking that article! I followed through it to the group that makes CatAcademy, Memrise. Some fantastic learning options in there! I can work on my language skills AND learn about anatomy in the same app! :D

  4. I don’t even use my tablet to check the weather, but now I’m definitely doing it.

    Nothing like cats and LOL speak for a good morning start

  5. Um. This is the greatest thing to happen to the world* in my opinion.

    *The list of greatest things to happen to the world includes, but is not limited to, the creation of autostraddle, grilled cheese, and the L word.

  6. This post is perfectly timed – I just left the Humane Society, sad that I could not adopt all the kittez, and I think cats telling me the weather will be the perfect (purrfect) antidote.

      • I cuddled particularly intensely with a fluffy orange gentleman named Garfield, and it broke my heart to leave him. So many cat feels!

        • My kitteh is an adoption – and he looks just like the cat in the error picture. But he really doesn’t care for other cats, so I can’t really bring home any fluffy orange gentleman cats called Garfield or otherwise.

  8. This app is way more entertaining than the lab reports I have to write. The current cat for Angelus Oaks is very spacey and awesome.

    • Me too.

      Damn. Now I’m going to have to get a smartphone. Because cats.

      This app could actually make me want to leave the house when the weather is below freezing.

  24. I had to re-read the title like 4 times because I thought it said “Whiskey Weather” for the longest time. I don’t even know, brain.

    Downloaded this before I finished the article, but my current city doesn’t have the weather!!

    • New idea! App that tells you which whiskey to drink based on the weather! (I don’t even know either, brain.)

    • We’ll be sure to keep that in mind ;) I could use that too.

      > • <

      As for your current city…oh noes! Where is it, I can check in on my end and see what's up.

  28. I love this idea, but realistically I will still check my weather channel app compulsively because I take the weather very seriously. Because I’m my dad. But I will still enjoy adorable kitties.

    • I’m working towards having even more weather data in the future, maybe we can draw you away from the weather channel app! > • <

  29. LOLCATZ. I may or may not have a folder on my desktop dedicated to lolcatz pictures I particularly like. Shut up. I hope they come out with other languages! Slash I wonder if they need help creating other languages…?

    • Denver is a pic of a cat with a mustache and it says “partly sunz”! I am so happy about this.

  35. It seems to only give temperatures in F, so while the cats are much appreciated, I still have only half a clue as to how I should dress for the day.

    • Fiona! Hi, you can see the C. On Iphone its at the bottom of the “add and edit locations” tab, and on android there’s a temperature settings in the overflow menu.

      -Marie

      PS, be in touch if you have other questions / concerns!

    • Of course, December in canada only comes in Fucking Cold and Really Fucking Cold, so it’s hardly a struggle.

Comments are closed.