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I can't even begin to count how many times I've had this conversation with Siri. "Hey Siri, is it going to rain?" "It doesn't look like it's going to rain tod

I can't even begin to count how many times I've had this conversation with Siri. "Hey Siri, is it going to rain?" "It doesn't look like it's going to rain today." "It's raining right now." "It isn't raining right now."

lotsofpulp 3y ago
Why would you expect Siri to know if it is raining at your specific location? Surely there exists an edge where on one side it is raining and on the other it is not raining. So unless you are sitting next to the the weather station that Siri is getting data from, I would not expect it to know 100% of the time.
- Etheryte 3y ago
  I live in the Netherlands. The local weather apps tell me when it's going to rain with nearly minute precision, along with cloud maps with scrollable time, graphs of how heavy the rain will be at what time, etc. It's pure nonsense to claim this is a technical limitation when other apps do it with ease. No one is expecting it to be right 100% of the time, but Apple Weather is wrong about rain most of the time, even on a crude scale of say, a city.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > Why would you expect Siri to know if it is raining at your specific location? I don't, but as a result, I expect it not to guess.
  - Filligree 3y ago
    But you’re asking it to guess, and it’s usually right. Surely that’s better than having it refuse to offer a suggestion.
throw0101d 3y ago
> I can't even begin to count how many times I've had this conversation with Siri. I live in Toronto, Canada, which stretches about 40km east-west, and 20km north-south: If the west-end (Sherway) gets hit with rain, but the east-end is dry, did it rain "in" Toronto when folks in Scarborough didn't experience it? Was the forecast wrong? If it snows in North York but is dry at Billy Bishop, was the precipitation forecast "wrong" for one particular group of people?
- Etheryte 3y ago
  Apple Weather uses your precise location if you allow it to, meaning it knows your location down to a meter, network and positioning issues etc notwithstanding. It doesn't have to guess your weather based on "Toronto", it knows your GPS coordinates. There is no technical limitation here, as I outlined in a separate comment thread [0], other apps already give you weather data and predictions with this granularity. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39683660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39683660
  - sznio 3y ago
    >It doesn't have to guess your weather based on "Toronto", it knows your GPS coordinates. Meanwhile the Google Weather app constantly insists I live in Frankfurt while I'm in Warsaw.
    - StefanBatory 3y ago
      Fur Deutschland... On a serious note I'm dealing with this as well - I live in a middle-sized city in the centre of the country, not in Kraków!
  - throw0101d 3y ago
    > There is no technical limitation here, as I outlined in a separate The technical limitation would be on the weather data size: what is the granularity/resolution of the radar data on where rain is actually falling? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_weather_radar_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_weather_radar_network Further: what is the geography of the area, and how does that effect things as well? Toronto specifically has (a) all sort of heat island effects, (b) certain areas are effected by the lake and how weather systems cross it at certain angles, and (c) has enough of an elevation change going north of the lake (e.g., Niagara Escarpment) that there are a few ˚C change in temperature that makes the differences between snow and rain.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

Why would you expect Siri to know if it is raining at your specific location? Surely there exists an edge where on one side it is raining and on the other it is not raining. So unless you are sitting next to the the weather station that Siri is getting data from, I would not expect it to know 100% of the time.

Etheryte 3y ago
I live in the Netherlands. The local weather apps tell me when it's going to rain with nearly minute precision, along with cloud maps with scrollable time, graphs of how heavy the rain will be at what time, etc. It's pure nonsense to claim this is a technical limitation when other apps do it with ease. No one is expecting it to be right 100% of the time, but Apple Weather is wrong about rain most of the time, even on a crude scale of say, a city.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ceejayoz 3y ago
> Why would you expect Siri to know if it is raining at your specific location? I don't, but as a result, I expect it not to guess.
- Filligree 3y ago
  But you’re asking it to guess, and it’s usually right. Surely that’s better than having it refuse to offer a suggestion.

throw0101d 3y ago

> I can't even begin to count how many times I've had this conversation with Siri. I live in Toronto, Canada, which stretches about 40km east-west, and 20km north-south: If the west-end (Sherway) gets hit with rain, but the east-end is dry, did it rain "in" Toronto when folks in Scarborough didn't experience it? Was the forecast wrong? If it snows in North York but is dry at Billy Bishop, was the precipitation forecast "wrong" for one particular group of people?

Etheryte 3y ago
Apple Weather uses your precise location if you allow it to, meaning it knows your location down to a meter, network and positioning issues etc notwithstanding. It doesn't have to guess your weather based on "Toronto", it knows your GPS coordinates. There is no technical limitation here, as I outlined in a separate comment thread [0], other apps already give you weather data and predictions with this granularity. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39683660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39683660
- sznio 3y ago
  >It doesn't have to guess your weather based on "Toronto", it knows your GPS coordinates. Meanwhile the Google Weather app constantly insists I live in Frankfurt while I'm in Warsaw.
  - StefanBatory 3y ago
    Fur Deutschland... On a serious note I'm dealing with this as well - I live in a middle-sized city in the centre of the country, not in Kraków!
- throw0101d 3y ago
  > There is no technical limitation here, as I outlined in a separate The technical limitation would be on the weather data size: what is the granularity/resolution of the radar data on where rain is actually falling? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_weather_radar_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_weather_radar_network Further: what is the geography of the area, and how does that effect things as well? Toronto specifically has (a) all sort of heat island effects, (b) certain areas are effected by the lake and how weather systems cross it at certain angles, and (c) has enough of an elevation change going north of the lake (e.g., Niagara Escarpment) that there are a few ˚C change in temperature that makes the differences between snow and rain.