11.1Rain radar

Rain radar shows where rain is falling right now. It's a picture made by weather stations that bounce radio waves off rain. It's on when you first open the app.

The Radar button sits in the column of buttons on the right of the map. It turns green while the radar shows. It's the same switch as Rain Radar (live) on the Weather tab.

1. Tap Radar to hide the rain.
2. Tap Radar again to bring it back.

The radar is brightest when you're zoomed out. It fades as you zoom in, and it's gone at street level. Zoom out to see where the rain is and which way it's moving.

The app gets a new radar picture every 5 minutes. Sometimes the radar goes quiet while rain is due. Then a note says the radar is away for a bit, and will be back soon.

Step by step, with pictures: See the weather on your trip

11.2The Weather tab

The Weather tab holds the weather switches for the map.

1. Tap Menu at the top left.
2. Tap Weather along the top of the menu.

Only one of the two switches can be on at a time. Turning on Wind Speed turns off the radar, and the other way round.

11.3Wind Speed

Wind Speed shows how hard the wind blows and which way it goes. Thin white lines stream across the map in the wind's direction. Coloured shading under them shows the strength.

1. Tap Menu, then Weather.
2. Tap the Wind Speed switch.
3. Wait a moment while the switch says Loading weather.

The Legend shows the wind in m/s. That means metres each second. To get km/h, multiply by about 3.6. So 10 m/s is about 36 km/h.

The wind is worked out for points across the part of the map you're looking at. Move the map, and it works it out again after a couple of seconds.

11.4The Forecast Time bar

The Forecast Time bar is a slider under the switches. It does a different job for each switch.

With Rain Radar (live) on, slide it left to step back through about the last two hours of radar. The label shows Radar, then now, or how many minutes ago. A picture marked in a few minutes is a short guess of where the rain is heading. Step through the pictures to see which way the rain is moving.

With Wind Speed on, it runs from Now to +7 days. Slide it right to watch the wind change over the next week. The label shows the day and the hour.

11.5Weather at a spot you tap

You can check the weather at any spot on the map.

1. Make sure Rain Radar (live) or Wind Speed is on.
2. Tap an empty part of the map, away from pins and your route.
3. Tap Menu, then Weather, to read it under Location Weather.

Hold your finger down on the map to open What's here. It shows seven days of weather for that spot, with the high, the low and the rain for each day.

11.6Weather at each stop on your route

Plan a route, and the Route Summary shows a weather card for each place. There's one for the Start, one for each Stop and one for the Destination.

1. Tap Menu, then Route.
2. Add your start and end, then tap Plan Route.
3. Scroll down the Route Summary to the cards for each place.

Each card shows one day. The Start shows today. The first stop shows tomorrow, the next stop the day after, and so on. After seven days, every later stop shows day seven.

Each card also lists campsites, fuel, water, shops and toilets near that place.

11.7Weather warnings on your route

The app checks each place's forecast for bad weather. Anything it finds goes in the Warnings list in the Route Summary.

Official weather warnings are on the map too. These come from the weather service and emergency services. If one covers part of your route on your trip day, it's listed as well.

Step by step, with pictures: See the weather on your trip

11.8Official warnings on the map

Official warnings show as purple areas on the map. Each has its name on it. Most come from the Bureau of Meteorology, the weather service. Some come from state fire and emergency teams.

There's no switch for them. They're always on, because a warning you have to look for is no help.

1. Tap a purple area.
2. Read the card. It shows the warning, the area, what to do, when it starts and ends, and who issued it.

With signal, the app looks for new ones every 10 minutes.

11.9Weather with no signal

When you plan a route, the app saves a week of forecasts along it to your phone. It takes a point about every 40 km, up to 25 points.

When it's done, the Route Summary shows Offline ready, with the words 7-day weather cached along this route. Those forecasts keep working when you lose signal.

A forecast more than two hours old says when it was saved. It refreshes by itself when you're back in signal.

11.10Temperatures and units

The app uses metric units, and there's no switch to change them.

The Dash button opens a dashboard with your speed and height. Its top bar shows the temperature, the air pressure and the wind where you are. An arrow beside the pressure shows if it's rising or falling. Falling pressure often means bad weather is coming. Its RAIN panel is a small radar of the area around you.

11.11Webcams

See the road ahead before you drive it. The Webcams switch puts cameras on the map, like the Blue Mountains on the Great Western Highway and the Toowoomba Range.

1. Tap Menu at the top left.
2. Tap Layers along the top of the menu.
3. Under Trails & Land, turn on Webcams.
4. Tap a camera on the map.

A purple camera looks at mountains or a pass, a teal one at the coast, and a small grey one at the road.

Cameras from Live Traffic NSW and QLDTraffic show their picture right on the map. Other cameras belong to their owners, so tapping one opens the owner's page.

11.12Where the weather comes from