Weatherbug is spyware and annoyware and pop-up ware.
Annoyware, I agree with, if you don't configure it after install and just leave everything set at defaults. It will ping and beep and annoy the snot out of you for every little alert ("oh my God, there's a BREEZE!"). But if you take a few moments to set it up to only alert on major events, warnings, alerts, it works just fine.
I would like to see some proof that it's spyware. I've not heard that, it's not flagged by any of my spyware software either. It doesn't report back to the weatherbug people the sites I visit, or what's on my hard drive. Please explain why you feel it's spyware.
Professional reviewers don't categorize it as spyware, either:
http://www.pchell.com/support/weatherbug.shtml
They do note that it's ad supported, so you're gonna see some ads, but they are not obtrusive, just shown on the side of the forecast window. If you want to pay for a subscription, you can make the ads go away, too.
He could use the Weather Channel's software:
http://www.weather.com/services/twcalerts.html