Even Carrot Weather now has a ChatGPT-based AI chatbot

The Carrot Weather app has gained a snarky ChatGPT-like chatbot while expanding its detailed radar maps, notifications and severe weather alerts to more countries.

  • What’s happening? Hello there, meatbag. The best forecasting app with an attitude (that would be me, Carrot Weather, stupid!) now has a chatbot.
  • Why care? Because you’ve always wanted to have AI write a script for a crime thriller while you’re checking the weather forecast, human.
  • What to do? Go back to your miserable life while I continue to rule over climate.

Carrot Weather brings a snarky AI chatbot

Conversing with Carrot's AI chatbot on iPhone
Chatting with Carrot’s AI is unpredictable | Image: Brian Mueller/Carrot Weather

The hilarious iPhone, iPad and Mac weather app is known for spicing weather forecasts with funny quotes while trading insults. In its most recent 5.10 update, Carrot brings several new features, including a ChatGPT-inspired AI chatbot.

You can message the bot, asking it complex questions similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Yes, you can use profanity in your interactions with the bot. All users get five messages for free, with more available via Carrot’s Tip Jar feature.

Adjusting AI chatbot personality

Adjusting AI personality of the Carrot Weather chatbot on iPhone
Choose your AI personality | Image: Brian Mueller/Carrot Weather

You can ask the bot complex questions, like asking it to play a text adventure game or write a procedural crime thriller. If you’ve ever used ChatGPT, you’ll feel right at home. Open the app’s settings to adjust AI personality with options ranging from Sarcastic, Funny and Confused to Disgusted, Bitter and Drunken. In addition, character modes like Mobster, Cowboy, Pirate, Soviet and Fake News are available.

As you might have guessed, Fake News will produce nonsense instead of answering your questions. On the other hand, selecting Mobster will make Carrot talk like a 1920s-era gangster. The chatbot provides all users with five messages for free (according to our tests), with more available to purchase via Carrot’s Tip Jar.

Weather alerts in more countries

Adjusting notification settings in the Carrot Weather app
You can turn off notifications for specific places (left) and adjust time-sensitive severe weather alerts (right) | Image: Brian Mueller/Carrot Weather

Carrot Weather 5.10 also expands support for government-issued weather alerts and weather notifications to more countries. Push notifications for weather alerts are now available in Canada, Israel and most of Europe.

This also includes support for monitoring multiple locations, with the ability to manage critical alerts and mute filters. Keep in mind that you must be a Premium subscriber to receive push notifications for government-issued weather alerts.

Lightning warnings

On top of those enhancements, Carrot Weather 5.10 lets users in Europe, Central America and the Caribbean get alerts about nearby lightning strikes.

You can customize this feature by turning off lightning notifications for specific locations in Carrot’s Mute Filters tab. The privilege of receiving timely alerts about nearby strikes in your area requires a Premium Ultra subscription.

Expanded radar maps

Radar maps and multi-location support in Carrot Weather for iPhone
Radar maps (left) and multi-location support (right) | Image: Brian Mueller/Carrot Weather

Carrot users in Europe, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan can also access Carrot’s high-quality radar views. When viewing these detailed radar maps, you can turn individual layers for things like temperature and precipitation on and off.

Users in the above regions can also change the radar color palette between ready-made themes and take advantage of the Inspector feature (a subscription is required). Carrot developer Brian Mueller has confirmed to The Verge that the new regions will show on the mini-map “in the next month or two.”

New radar station products

But what if you’d like to explore radar in much higher resolution or have it refresh more often? Well, crisper radar maps and more frequent radar view refreshes are available as part of Individual Radar Station Mode for paid Premium Ultra members.

And if you find yourself nervously tracking an incoming severe storm, Carrot Weather 5.10 now lets you use the NEXRAD Level 3 products, such as the Storm Total Accumulation, to track severe weather in the United States.

NEXRAD stands for Next Generation Weather Radar, a network of 160 sophisticated weather radars operated by the NOAA National Weather Service.

Pricing and availability

Carrot Weather 5.10 is available for free to existing users of the app. Carrot Weather is available to download for free but advanced functionality requires a subscription: Premium Ultra ($10/month or $40/year) or Premium ($5/month or $20/year).

The app is available for the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch.

The iPhone and iPad version requires iOS and iPadOS 13.0 or later. The Mac version requires an Apple silicon Mac with an M1 chip or later, plus macOS 12.5 or later.

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