Track weather for any ZIP code with WeatherDan

Rain? Wind? Ice? Snow? Just about everyone needs to know what’s happening next with the weather, and there are a vast number of tools and websites to keep you up-to-date.

Most weather monitors try to win you over by piling on the features: multiple locations, detailed long-term graphs, customized alerts, whatever it might be. The results can be very powerful, but also bulky and complex.

Free Windows tool WeatherDan takes more of a back-to-basics approach, only displaying recent conditions for US ZIP codes. It’s extremely simple, but if it matches your needs than that’s going to be a very good thing.

The program’s tiny 873KB download suggests it’s a seriously lightweight package, and that proves to be the case. A hassle-free installation equips your PC with a single executable file, a license and uninstall file, and nothing else at all.

A single click on the WeatherDan’s system tray icon displays a Weather.com-sourced summary for the current ZIP code (3345/8 Jupiter, FL by default). Details include temperature, "feels like", wind, humidity, pressure, dew point, visibility, UV index.

This popup doesn’t disappear after a few seconds, or when you move your mouse away, and this seemed convenient to us: you can leave it there, and the summary remains on top of other windows.

But if you don’t need it any more, no problem -- one click on the summary and it disappears.

Right-click the WeatherDan system tray icon and you’ll find options to set your own ZIP code, how often the program should retrieve weather conditions (never to every 60 minutes, 10 minutes by default), and whether you’d like 300 or 600 mile radar coverage.

A right-click "Show Radar" option displays the current weather map, and will also animate this once it’s downloaded enough updates (it won’t happen right away).

There are also shortcuts to open Weather.com at your defined ZIP code, or launch the WeatherDan home page.

WeatherDan is one of the more basic weather monitors: it’s US-only, supports just one location, and has no configuration options beyond the ZIP code. But the program is also lightweight, easy to use and entirely free, and if you don’t need the bulk and complexity of the competition then it could be very appealing.