What Does Smoke Mean in the Weather on my iPhone?

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Smoke in your weather iPhone actually means that there is smoke in the skies of your neighboring area. This is often from a forest fire or other large blaze, causing burned particles to travel miles away and produce a foggy effect in the air around your area.

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What is the Weather App that comes with iPhone?

The weather app that comes with iPhone is simply the default application that is used to check the weather for your current location or in other places. This app uses different data from the National Weather Service or another reliable source or their mechanism for data to predict future weather conditions.

The app features a magnificent design that changes based on the current weather condition in your area. For instance, if the rain is coming soon, or it is raining outside, the weather app will adjust its layout to show the hourly forecast, next-hour precipitation, or the radar at the top.

What’s more, it allows users to either view severe weather information, upcoming hourly and 10-day weather forecast, temperature, or view weather maps. And if you are a fan of notifications, this app will enable you to receive precipitation notifications among other related metrics of your device’s current location.

But if there is no rain in your area, the application will focus only on the 10-days forecast and the current condition on the top.

The app is usually a blue icon with a cloud and sun behind it. However, it sometimes shows short form symbols to signify different weather forecasts. You may see symbols indicating smoke, cloud, dust, or even sunset among others.

So, for instance, if you see the clear symbol on the weather app, it means that the day will be clear and sunny, or there will be a minimum or no clouds in the sky. Sunrise or sunset symbol means that it is the time when the sun rises in the morning and the time when the sun sets down respectively.

But remember, you must turn on the Location Services to get the forecast for your current location. Once the Precise Location is turned on, the app will be able to show you time of sunrise and sunset, wind direction, and outdoor visibility. What’s more you will see display of rainfall measurements and barometric pressure.

If you are using iOS 14, you can be able to get most severe government-issued notifications susch as flash flooding, snowstorms, strong winds, and tornadoes. And if you are up to date with the iOS 15, you can access a weather map that shows you the air quality and a multi-day precipitation forecast. Also you will view the temperature from the bottom left of the app.

To turn the Location Services on, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Weather, then choose an option. And if you want to increase the accuracy of the forecast in your current location, you will have to turn on the Precise Location.

Best Weather Apps that come with iPhone

Finally, there are five best iOS weather forecasting apps that come with iPhone. Namely;

Dark Sky

This is the latest weather app that the Apple Company introduced in 2020. It is a premium app but shows accurate weather forecasts.

The Weather Channel

From this app, you can access the hour/daily/weekly forecast. Moreover, you can also receive information about viruses and upcoming hurricanes from this app.

Weather Underground

This offers you smart forecasts, storm tracking, quality of air, temperature. And the good news is, it also saves you data.

1Weather

Apart from delivering weather information, this app allows users to view precipitation levels, sun and moon’s positions, and track hourly/weekly forecasts.

Yahoo Weather

Yahoo Weather is a combination of all the best features and different apps. It shows accurate forecast, hour/daily/weekly forecast, storm tracking, quality of air, and temperature among others.

What Does Smoke Mean in the Weather on my iPhone?

The smokes symbol on your iPhone weather app simply means the weather is foggy due to the high amount of smoke in the air. Or simply signifies that your surroundings are affected by foggy weather with a burning smell.

The burning smell could be due to forest fires, crop burning, or even collective smoke from coal or wood fires from small villages, or other large blazes such as excessive smog caused by traffic or industry.

When either of these burnings occurs, the burned particles are released into the air. These particles can travel fairly large distances, 25 – 100 miles, and may settle down in a particular place due to weather conditions. Therefore, if you check your phone in such an environment, you will see that the weather app shows the smoke symbol.

Further, smoke in your weather app also means you are in a polluted environment. Some cities’ environment is often polluted by excessive traffic or industries. Therefore, if you happen to be in one of these cities, your iPhone will show a smoke symbol on the weather app.

Smoke might not necessarily mean smoke from a fire or a polluted environment. It can also represent frost smoke, especially in colder areas where there is no breeze where the frost smoke is neither too heavy to settle down nor too light to float away.

Smoke could mean that chances of rain are limited. Meaning the temperature impacts from the wildfire smoke can cause rain not to pour. This is because the dark smoke particles in the sky absorb sunlight and subsequently warm the air while blocking sunlight from reaching the surface and cooling the air at the ground. This in turn limits the rain because it creates an inversion.

What Does it Mean When the Weather App Says Haze?

It means there is a veil of white or brown haze hanging in the air that might blur your visibility. This means there is the presence of dust, smoke, and dry particles in the air obscuring the sky’s clarity. And so, even as you drive along the way, your total visibility range will decrease due to a lack of proper sunlight.

When the sunlight encounters tiny pollution particles in the air, it will cause haze weather. Meaning some light will be absorbed by the particles while others are scattered way before it reaches an observer, hence hampering visibility.

Moreover, the natural dispersal of smoke and other pollutants are often hindered when smoke particles and dust accumulate in dry air. This in turn causes a build-up, creating a low-hanging and a blanket like cloud that construct your visibility.

When a volcanic activity occurs, your weather app will after some minutes say haze. This is because sulfuric dioxide droplets are created by the volcanic gases during a major volcanic eruption which in turn cause a blurring effect in the sky.

Sometime sunlight is absorbed when the wind blows the desert dust, causing a natural haze into the atmosphere, hence the warm environment.

What’s more, your weather app is likely to say haze especially when the weather is distinguished by unusual dryness. This can either be on the surface or at a considerable altitude above the ground.

Haze is air pollution that is carried by the wind from many hundreds of miles away from where it originated. And so, when your weather app indicates a haze, it means there are more pollutants, resulting in a reduction in the clarity and color of the sky.

Haze is often found in a typical hot and humid summer days. During this time, your total visibility range may vary from 1.2 to 3.1 miles.

You will realize that during this weather condition, the air remains for many days uniformly dry, the nights being nearly dewless, and the sky often free from clouds.