As the UK's national meteorological service, the Met Office provides accurate and reliable weather forecasts on TV, radio and online. With the Met Office Desktop Widget you can have the latest forecasts, warnings and observations on your desktop, what ever you are doing.

• Features
• What's available?
• Customising
• Upgrading
• Conditions of use
• Downloading and installing

For further information on the what is included in the Desktop Widget please see our content guide.

Key features

• Free to download
• Up-to-date weather forecasts, warnings and observations from the Met Office
• Customise the content which is displayed
• Keep up to date with weather information while working on other tasks
• Easy-to-understand display
• Alert in the system tray when warnings are issued

What information is available?

• Three hourly forecasts out to day five for 5,000 locations
• Forecasts include, temperature, wind speed and direction, feels-like temperature and UV
• Forecast maps for temperature, rainfall and pressure
• Weather warnings including a quick view of warning status and type
• Nearest observations for the last two days
• Latest news from the Met Office

Customising the Desktop Widget

Content

You can customise the content of your Desktop Widget by selecting 'options' at the bottom of the app or clicking the spanner icon in the top right. Alternatively you can right click on the icon in the system tray and select 'options'

Options for customisation include:

• your choice of forecast location
• which forecast elements to display
• units e.g. Celsius/Fahrenheit
• switch on/off map display

Simply select your preferences in the options window and click 'OK'.

Guide to the content of the Desktop Widget

Size

You can also choose the size of your Desktop Widget from the following options:

• A full sized version containing all your customised content
• A small version containing a basic forecast for the next 3 days
• Minimised to your system tray

Upgrading the Desktop Widget

The Desktop Widget will automatically tell you when a new version is available by changing the system tray icon to 'new'

The 'About' box will also indicate when a new update is available.

To install the update, click on the icon in the system tray and follow the on screen instructions.

The release notes will highlight what has changed in the new release.

Use of the Desktop Widget

The Desktop Widget is a free service offered by the Met Office for personal and non commercial use.

The use of this service is subject to Met Office Terms and Conditions, to download this software you need to agree to these terms and conditions.

Please note: You must have administrator privileges to upgrade the desktop widget

Downloading and Installing

Compatibility

The desktop Widget requires Adobe® AIR® version 3.0 or above and is compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems. Before installing it is recommended that you temporarily disable any anti-virus programs.

Windows

• 2.33GHz or faster x86-compatible processor or Intel® Atom™ 1.6GHz or faster processor for netbooks
• Microsoft® Windows® XP Home, Professional, or Tablet PC Edition with Service Pack 3, Windows Server® 2003, Windows Server® 2008, Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise (including 64-bit editions) with Service Pack 2, or Windows 7
• 512 MB of RAM (1 GB recommended)
• Administrator privileges

Macintosh

• Intel Core™ Duo or faster processor
• Mac OS X v10.6 or v10.7
• 512 MB of RAM (1 GB recommended)
• Administrator privileges

For more information please visit the  Adobe Air website.

Installing Adobe Air

To use the Desktop Widget you will need to have Adobe Air installed on your computer. Click the button below to download it for free.

Installing the Desktop Widget

Once you have installed Adobe Air, you will need to download the Desktop Widget.

The use of this service is subject to Met Office Terms and Conditions, to download this software you need to agree to these terms and conditions.