Most of us watch and listen to weather forecasts broadcasted by TV or radio stations in their news bulletins so we can be prepared for whatever we might have to face outside our home on a specific day or during a vacation. There is also an ever-growing category of people who use the Internet services to get the weather conditions from various meteorological websites. However, the simplest and most convenient way of receiving updated information on weather and climate changes is to install dedicated software that can deliver all the details you need to know directly on your desktop.

With this in mind, you can either start searching the web for the best utility that will cater your needs or try WeatherMate, a freeware little app that brings on your screen the available forecasts for over 50,000 locations worldwide. A radar map, detailed conditions for several locations at once and an option to predict the weather out loud are the main attraction points that make this utility stand out from the rest of the pack.

WeatherMate offers you a simple and very easy to use interface with multiple customization options. You can use the metric or the English units and switch between them in no more than two clicks. The utility can be set to show up on top of all the running applications and there's also an auto hide function that comes in quite handy if you want to keep your desktop neat and uncluttered. The tray icon of WeatherMate can display the actual temperature or how it actually feels like in a specific location. A very nice feature is the temperature-dependent color of the icon that helps in identifying the weather condition faster.

The main window of this application will display the exact amount of details you tell it to show. It can reveal the brief or detailed current conditions, show the present day's forecast, day by day detail, weekly summary or weekly detail. The usual weather information (air temperature, wind speed, humidity, pressure, visibility and dew point) is accompanied by the sunrise and sunset times. If you need it, WeatherMate is able to present you with a radar map to enhance the experience. The satellite image can be animated with a single mouse click.

You can easily select the locations for which the forecasts are displayed by simply clicking on a link in the program's interface. WeatherMate has special categories for US and international cities you can choose from; also, in the same window you'll find a very useful feature, namely the possibility to select several locations to view the weather conditions for. The selection can be done by choosing a state or a country and then a specific town or by locating them from the entire database. Once you decide on the areas that will be monitored, the information will be shown in separate tabs, each with its individual satellite map.

Accessing the Options menu from the main window or using the right-click menu and selecting the Settings section will enable you to customize the running parameters of the application. The software can update the displayed information at a time interval you select between 5 and 1440 minutes. WeatherMate can be positioned in a precise location on the computer screen and there's also an option to prevent the main window from being dragged.

An original and interesting function of this utility is the capability of voicing the current weather conditions and near-term forecast as well as the location name. To use this feature, you must enable text-to-speech on your system. Just as innovative and useful is the Auto Hide ability that can reduce WeatherMate's width or height as well as fade it lightly or deeply. You can even select a specific level of sensitivity for this function from the three available: Low, Medium or High.

Overall, it's safe to say that this particular software offers all the weather information you'll need in a concise form. The database covers a wide variety of international and US locations while the customization level is rather high and there are also some nice extra features.

The Good

The main strong points of WeatherMate are the diversity of information it offers and the large list of available locations. The clear-cut interface, the multitude of on hand adjustments and the special functions are also among the assets that make this small application a great weather informer.

The Bad

The (perhaps unique) weakness of this utility is the fact that it consumes quite a few system resources, but this is due to the fact that it needs to constantly update the information and especially the satellite radar map.

The Truth

Once thing is certain: you can't go wrong with WeatherMate. It will always keep you up to date with the weather conditions and the forecasts for almost any location you can think of. As this application is freeware, you need not search any further for your personal weather companion.