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Just a little knowledge to drop, as a bachelor degree meteorologist and also coder / HN'er. Dont use your built in phone app for forecasts. Dont expect hour by

Just a little knowledge to drop, as a bachelor degree meteorologist and also coder / HN'er. Dont use your built in phone app for forecasts. Dont expect hour by hour precision (maybe for the next few hours sure, but not 2,3,4,5 days out). Trust nobody expect the trained professionals at NWS. These people look at ALL the models, they watch things like a hawk. I work with some of these nerds and it's crazy. They are like 'oh jimbob did you see the latest GFS kicking out the low up into canada? oh yeah doug that is crazy, but the euro says blah blah and NAM says blahblah... Their job is to literally make a forecast, for the same area, every day. Some people do it for years and years! Think of the experience, wisdom, little tricks and tips etc. Just go to weather.gov, look at it for 2 minutes. Read the foreacst discussion if you want to get your details.

pxlpshr 8y ago
I find Dark Sky to be the best forecasting tool for weather within the hour. It's almost always ahead of all the other apps in terms of the latest forecast.
- wenc 8y ago
  I bought the app because of its hyperlocal forecasting, but it's been known to predict precipitation where there's none, and vice versa. I wonder if it does better in some geographies than others (e.g. high pressure system areas where things are more stable)
  - brootstrap 8y ago
    hyperlocal is a joke, sorry to say it. Just because you can downscale your grid to a very small number doesnt mean good data. It just means you can do statistics and mathy stuff to interpolate. Everyone forecasts better in stable times such as a strong high pressure ridge. The tricky part is the edge areas between air masses, the transition zones. This is where all the juicy weather actually happens and it is the hardest to model
    - Groxx 8y ago
      Totally agreed on it being a marketing term, not a real prediction improvement - it's essentially the same as any other app in terms of "will it rain" / etc. But they do a much better job of notifying about changes based on where I physically am, instead of for the city / region as a whole. Other weather apps I've used don't differentiate between "rain falling now 50 miles away" and "rain falling on my head", even though the radar map clearly gives them that info at a much finer level of detail.
- rbritton 8y ago
  It's pretty accurate here, when it works. I'd guess at least 40% of the time it states that the local radar is down and refuses to give that kind of forecast.
kawfey 8y ago
One of the things I loved best about Wunderground was their prominent display of the textual SFD. Now it's gotten a lot more mainstream, and still have increasingly accurate forecasts, but the SFD link has been dropped from the forecast page for any particular area. Now my source is directly from NWS page, which is really nice since forecaster terms can be clicked to bring up a definition. https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=LSX&issuedby=LSX&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1 https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=LSX&issuedby=L...
- tspike 8y ago
  You can still find a link to it on the 10-day tab, but they did hide it.
- twic 8y ago
  I think Metcheck is the UK equivalent of this. To pick a few random page of turbo-nerdery (if you need a UK postcode to try, the National Museum of Computing is at MK3 6EB): https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/ghx_charts.asp https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/ghx_charts.asp https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/discussion.asp?DiscussionID=1424&DiscussionTitle=Lots+Of+Weather+This+Week https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/discussion.asp?DiscussionID... https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/laundry_drying_times.asp https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/laundry_drying_times.asp
travisjungroth 8y ago
Don't all those apps just get their data ultimately from the NWS?
- brootstrap 8y ago
  Yes this is truth to some degree. However, you dont know what you are getting with an app. If you go to read the official NWS page, the forecasts are human curated by a pro. Apps likely are just taking model output directly and feeding it to you as gospel.
- PopePompus 8y ago
  Some commercial forecasters have a "wet bias" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_bias). They intentionally overestimate the odds for precipitation on the theory that people are happier if it doesn't rain when they were planning on rain than they would be if it rained when they did not expect it.
noir_lord 8y ago
I get my weather straight from UK met page for that reason. It has much more detail which helps as a cyclist, there is more than just average wind speed and temp.
saalweachter 8y ago
In the Hudson Valley, we have (a) local weather nerd(s): https://hudsonvalleyweather.com https://hudsonvalleyweather.com . It's especially nice for upcoming storms because they break down the region logically based on the relevant features (the river valleys and mountains), for instance: https://hudsonvalleyweather.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/1-28-19-FinalSnowMap.png https://hudsonvalleyweather.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/1...
jdietrich 8y ago
If you really care about short-term weather forecasts, learn to read surface pressure charts and rainfall radar. It's not particularly difficult and it gives you a huge amount of additional information. A summary forecast can only tell you so much, especially in changeable conditions and complex microclimates. Knowing the range of probable conditions is often much more useful than knowing the most probable condition.
- ip26 8y ago
  How do you suggest really learning to read the surface pressure charts? I have gotten to the point I understand what I'm looking at, but can't really turn the factual knowledge of watching the highs and lows and winds moving around into real understanding & forecasting.
subraizada3 8y ago
I made a website that displays hourly weather forecasts from the NWS: https://www.subraizada.com/weather/kbmg https://www.subraizada.com/weather/kbmg You can make a version for your location here: https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/src https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/src - it should just generate a single HTML file which you can host anywhere. An older version also showed the 'normal' weather.gov forecast embedded to the left of the hourly forecast, you can get that if you copy/paste the deleted part of this commit back into the python file: https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/commits/ad25bd924f7007a95545317ce3e802f2acd6e0bc?at=master https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/commits/...

pxlpshr 8y ago

I find Dark Sky to be the best forecasting tool for weather within the hour. It's almost always ahead of all the other apps in terms of the latest forecast.

wenc 8y ago
I bought the app because of its hyperlocal forecasting, but it's been known to predict precipitation where there's none, and vice versa. I wonder if it does better in some geographies than others (e.g. high pressure system areas where things are more stable)
- brootstrap 8y ago
  hyperlocal is a joke, sorry to say it. Just because you can downscale your grid to a very small number doesnt mean good data. It just means you can do statistics and mathy stuff to interpolate. Everyone forecasts better in stable times such as a strong high pressure ridge. The tricky part is the edge areas between air masses, the transition zones. This is where all the juicy weather actually happens and it is the hardest to model
  - Groxx 8y ago
    Totally agreed on it being a marketing term, not a real prediction improvement - it's essentially the same as any other app in terms of "will it rain" / etc. But they do a much better job of notifying about changes based on where I physically am, instead of for the city / region as a whole. Other weather apps I've used don't differentiate between "rain falling now 50 miles away" and "rain falling on my head", even though the radar map clearly gives them that info at a much finer level of detail.
rbritton 8y ago
It's pretty accurate here, when it works. I'd guess at least 40% of the time it states that the local radar is down and refuses to give that kind of forecast.

kawfey 8y ago

One of the things I loved best about Wunderground was their prominent display of the textual SFD. Now it's gotten a lot more mainstream, and still have increasingly accurate forecasts, but the SFD link has been dropped from the forecast page for any particular area. Now my source is directly from NWS page, which is really nice since forecaster terms can be clicked to bring up a definition. https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=LSX&issuedby=LSX&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1 https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=LSX&issuedby=L...

tspike 8y ago
You can still find a link to it on the 10-day tab, but they did hide it.
twic 8y ago
I think Metcheck is the UK equivalent of this. To pick a few random page of turbo-nerdery (if you need a UK postcode to try, the National Museum of Computing is at MK3 6EB): https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/ghx_charts.asp https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/ghx_charts.asp https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/discussion.asp?DiscussionID=1424&DiscussionTitle=Lots+Of+Weather+This+Week https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/discussion.asp?DiscussionID... https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/laundry_drying_times.asp https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/laundry_drying_times.asp

travisjungroth 8y ago

Don't all those apps just get their data ultimately from the NWS?

brootstrap 8y ago
Yes this is truth to some degree. However, you dont know what you are getting with an app. If you go to read the official NWS page, the forecasts are human curated by a pro. Apps likely are just taking model output directly and feeding it to you as gospel.
PopePompus 8y ago
Some commercial forecasters have a "wet bias" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_bias). They intentionally overestimate the odds for precipitation on the theory that people are happier if it doesn't rain when they were planning on rain than they would be if it rained when they did not expect it.

noir_lord 8y ago

I get my weather straight from UK met page for that reason. It has much more detail which helps as a cyclist, there is more than just average wind speed and temp.

saalweachter 8y ago

In the Hudson Valley, we have (a) local weather nerd(s): https://hudsonvalleyweather.com https://hudsonvalleyweather.com . It's especially nice for upcoming storms because they break down the region logically based on the relevant features (the river valleys and mountains), for instance: https://hudsonvalleyweather.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/1-28-19-FinalSnowMap.png https://hudsonvalleyweather.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/1...

jdietrich 8y ago

If you really care about short-term weather forecasts, learn to read surface pressure charts and rainfall radar. It's not particularly difficult and it gives you a huge amount of additional information. A summary forecast can only tell you so much, especially in changeable conditions and complex microclimates. Knowing the range of probable conditions is often much more useful than knowing the most probable condition.

ip26 8y ago
How do you suggest really learning to read the surface pressure charts? I have gotten to the point I understand what I'm looking at, but can't really turn the factual knowledge of watching the highs and lows and winds moving around into real understanding & forecasting.

subraizada3 8y ago

I made a website that displays hourly weather forecasts from the NWS: https://www.subraizada.com/weather/kbmg https://www.subraizada.com/weather/kbmg You can make a version for your location here: https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/src https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/src - it should just generate a single HTML file which you can host anywhere. An older version also showed the 'normal' weather.gov forecast embedded to the left of the hourly forecast, you can get that if you copy/paste the deleted part of this commit back into the python file: https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/commits/ad25bd924f7007a95545317ce3e802f2acd6e0bc?at=master https://bitbucket.org/subraizada3/weather-generator/commits/...