As photographers know, light is extremely important. And for outdoor photographers, nothing affects the quality of light quite like the weather. Photographer Matthew Raifman wanted to build a weather app for people like him, photographers who want to know not just what the weather forecast is, but whether or not the conditions will be any good for photography. Enter Atmos for Weather & Photo, also known as Atmos.

Raifman’s new iPhone weather app was “born out of a frustration most outdoor photographers know intimately: the pre-shoot ritual of bouncing between four or five different apps trying to piece together a complete picture of conditions.”

This includes figuring out where the Sun will be when conditions are best, what the wind is doing, tidal conditions, types and their altitudes, the phase of the Moon, and so on. For different types of outdoor photography, all of this matters, and Raifman wanted all of that info in one place.

But Atmos goes even further, including genre-based scores for different conditions.

“The core idea is simple. Rather than reporting raw conditions, Atmos Weather interprets them,” Raifman says. “Cloud cover, atmospheric humidity, visibility, wind, precipitation, sun angle, and terrain are all fed into a scoring model that produces a single shootability number for sunrise, sunset, and night sky windows.”

As the photographer explains, Atmos is less about telling the user what the weather is or what it is likely to be, but rather, what the sky will look like and whether it is worth going out to take photos.

To that end, the app promises sophisticated analysis, including treating clouds across three altitude layers, each impacting a final score differently. High cirrus clouds scatter light and make sunsets warmer, while low stratus clouds can totally ruin a shot. 65% cloud cover, for example, doesn’t really give a photographer useful information. Photographers need to know what kinds of clouds are in the sky and where they will be.

Similarly, photographers also care about the “horizon gap,” the open sky between the lowest layer of clouds and the land.

“This is the condition photographers are hunting for. When the sun dips below a cloud layer in the final minutes before it hits the horizon and illuminates the clouds, that’s what turns a decent sunset into something unforgettable,” Raifman says. “Atmos specifically identifies and scores for that window based on where the sun is setting, topography, and where the photographer is located. It’s a level of atmospheric analysis that goes well beyond anything in a standard forecast.”

For night photography, Atmos also tracks temperature spreads, changes, dew point, atmospheric transparency, Moon phase, and more to predict astrophotography conditions. It also pulls live space weather data from NOAA, including the Kp index, solar wind speed, and orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field, to offer insight for aurora chasers.

“Atmos filters everything against your exact latitude and tells you what it means where you’re standing. Will the aurora be visible for your eyes and your camera,” Raifman says.

In total, Atmos scores 12 photography genres independently, including wildlife, macro, long exposure, Milky Way, and even infrared. These scores are weighted by what matters most to those types of photographers.

Atmos is available now on iOS with a two-week free trial. Afterward, it is $3.99 per month. Raifman says this cost covers his development costs and access to the premium weather API data feeds the app requires.

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Image credits: Atmos, Matthew Raifman