Madeira · Tool comparison
The best app for Madeira hiking weather, honestly compared
Ask this on any Madeira forum and the same ritual gets prescribed: check IPMA for a named high spot, open Windy for the cloud base, watch the Arieiro webcam the evening before, then drive up and hope. Every tool in that ritual is good at one slice. Here is what each actually gives you, including where ours falls short.
Google / AccuWeather "Funchal"
Best atIt takes zero effort and appears before you finish typing the search.
The gapIt forecasts one sea-level point on the sheltered coast and presents it as "Madeira", which makes it the forecast most hikes get wrongly cancelled over.
IPMA (official)
Best atThe authority for weather warnings, with hourly forecasts for high spots like Areeiro.
The gapLocals trust it about a day out, and its rain percentages read pessimistic beyond that. The forecast surface carries no trail mapping and no closure status.
Windy
Best atEvery serious model and 50+ layers on one map, plus a global webcam network. Unbeatable for weather nerds.
The gapPoint forecasts: you must know where to drop the pin and how to read cloud base. No trail aggregation, closures or booking.
AllTrails
Best atRoute discovery and social proof at a scale nobody matches; thousands of Madeira reviews.
The gapConditions are lagging user reviews; live conditions sit in a $79.99/yr tier; no IFCN closure sync or booking data.
Komoot
Best atRoute planning and turn-by-turn navigation, with offline maps once you buy the region, plus a large library of community routes.
The gapIts weather is a general area forecast, not the trail's own. It will route you happily onto a levada that is shut today, because official closure status is not something it tracks.
WalkMe Madeira
Best atPolished local guide with offline GPS navigation and curated trails; strong island credibility.
The gapNo live per-trail weather scoring or live SIMplifica slots; the full trail set sits behind per-trail purchases.
Mapy.com
Best atThe most accurate free offline topographic map of Madeira's paths, and it works with no signal.
The gapA map, not a decision. It shows where the path goes, never whether today is the day, whether the trail needs a booking, or whether it is open.
Webcams (netmadeira etc.)
Best atLive ground truth at no cost, and the Arieiro cam is the island's folk oracle for sunrise.
The gapA camera shows now rather than later, and a cloudy evening does not guarantee a cloudy dawn. There is no forecast attached and no trail context around the image.
Levadas (this site)
Best atOne live 0 to 100 score per trail from route-wide weather, official IFCN closures, crowding and live SIMplifica availability, plus fog and cloud-inversion prediction.
The gapMadeira only, and young: no global brand, no decade of reviews, and our score is decision support, never a safety clearance.
The problem is not the forecasts, it is the island
Madeira compresses several climates into 50 kilometres. The trade winds pile cloud onto the north and the heights while the south coast bakes; hikers on TripAdvisor put it precisely, noting that fifty metres of altitude can separate thick fog from sunshine above a sea of clouds. Any single-point forecast, however good the model, answers for one point. A trail is not a point: it is a line through three altitude bands, an official status, a daily booking quota and a crowd curve.
That aggregation is the entire reason Levadas exists. The engine reads route-wide weather for all the trails we track, hard-overrides to zero on official IFCN closures, folds in live SIMplifica availability, and refreshes a 0 to 100 score every 20 minutes. It also predicts the photogenic anomalies, fog at Fanal and the cloud inversion at Arieiro, instead of leaving you to infer them from a cloud-base layer.
Try the live scores, freeKeep IPMA for warnings, keep the webcams because they are lovely, and if you enjoy reading isobars keep Windy too. The score is for the moment you actually have to choose a trail.
Levadas is an independent service built for Madeira, and it is open about what its numbers can and cannot do: who runs it and what the data can and cannot do.
Common questions
What is the best weather app for hiking in Madeira?
There is no single winner, which is why locals use several at once. IPMA is the official source and the one to trust for warnings. Windy shows every model layer if you can interpret them. Our own tool, Levadas, exists for the step none of them do: turning weather, official closures and booking data into one live score per trail.
Why is the Funchal forecast wrong for the mountains?
It is not wrong, it is answering a different question. Funchal sits at sea level on the sheltered south coast; the trails climb to 1,800 metres on the windward side. Fifty metres of altitude can be the difference between fog and sunshine above the clouds, as hikers on the island keep rediscovering. A city forecast simply cannot speak for a mountain trail.
Is AllTrails good for Madeira?
Good for discovering routes and reading thousands of reviews, yes. For deciding whether to go today, less so: its condition reports are user reviews that can lag by days or years, and locals warn about user-uploaded routes on the island leading to dead ends. Pair its inspiration with a live conditions source and the official closure list.
Do I still need the webcams if I use Levadas?
Watch them, they are wonderful. We put the island's public cams on our free map right next to the live scores precisely because a camera and a forecast answer different questions. The cam shows you one spot this minute. The score tells you what the whole route is likely to be by the time you are on it. Keep both open and judge for yourself: the cam is there so you can check us, not so we can quote it back at you.
Should I install Prociv Madeira too?
Yes, and it is not competing with anything on this list. Prociv Madeira is the regional civil protection app: official warnings and emergency information from the authorities themselves. Keep it for the alerts, and plan with whatever you like alongside it.