Apple’s Weather app works again for now, but has the problem been fixed?

If you’re anything like us, the first thing you do every morning is check the weather app on your iPhone. If it returns a blank screen this morning, it’s not a Wi-Fi problem — Apple’s systems have had serious problems all day. But after more than half a day of intermittent outages, the service was restored. However, it remains to be seen if the Weather app itself needs a larger overhaul to prevent it from happening again.

According to Apple’s system status page earlier Tuesday, the Weather app has had “ongoing” issues since 11:00 PM ET on Monday, and the service may be “slow or unreliable.” Apple notes that “some users are affected,” but based on anecdotal certificate– including Macworld’s own experience – the issue seemed to be widespread. It also seemed to affect the weather widget, which showed “no weather data” even when the weather appeared correctly in the app.

Apple responded to the inquiries on Twitter with a message saying that it is “currently working on a resolution to the Weather app outage and will post an update online.” Later in the afternoon, Apple’s status page was completely green and the warning indicator was up.

Some Macworld employees have had intermittent issues with the Weather app for the past several weeks. Sometimes, the app is slow to load or doesn’t load at all. Quitting the app and restarting was a quick fix, but even that doesn’t always work. So while Apple gave us the green light (literally, it’s no longer yellow on Apple’s status page), it’s not clear if a larger overhaul of the app isn’t needed. Some reports have suggested that an iOS 16.4.1 update may be imminent to fix the underlying issue that was said to have appeared for weeks. Apple does not update its apps independently of the system, so any fix must arrive as part of an iOS update.

Of course, this is not the end of the world as there are many ways to get weather conditions and forecasts on your phone. However, after Apple shut down the popular Dark Sky app on January 1, the iOS Weather app — which picked up many of Dark Sky’s features — will likely be the go-to source of weather information for many users. So while it works now, we’ll be on the lookout for potential storms on the horizon.