Apple Weather's forecasts are so bad my meteorologist made a post about it
Apple Weather's forecasts are so bad my meteorologist made a post about it
Good morning. Since the forecast is pretty much unchanged—expect very hot and sunny weather for the foreseeable future—I want to briefly address a question I’ve received several times. And th…
Apple Weather forecasts for my area have shown a 30-50% chance of precipitation for eternity, even when there isn't a cloud in sight. My meteorologist has told his readers to ignore Apple's forecasts.
This started around the time the Apple Weather outages a few months ago and haven't improved. YSK that you can report inaccurate forecasts from within the app, but it hasn't improved for me.
I'm currently using Foreca on iPhone and the free version of Carrot on Apple Watch.
How can Apple got this wrong? Pretty much all meteorological data are sourced from the same set of weather forecasting data produced from running weather simulations on weather agencies supercomputers using satellites and ground observation data. The forecasting models will pretty much produce almost similar results when fed with the same data, which is why weather reports are usually pretty similar even though they're produced by different weather agencies.
Does Apple actually run their own weather simulations here? Probably for their hyper local next-hour weather prediction feature? Or could it be that Apple is using some "AI" for their weather forecasting and the AI conjured some number out of its ass instead of running full physics simulation?
That's not true - I'm seeing 6 different weather sources in Carrot, and while they probably share raw data, they use different models. Dark Sky (which apple bought and re-branded) wasn't just an app, it was its own hyper local (and accurate) weather model. Apple broke it.
It started to go to shit right around the end of 2020 for me. Dark Sky went to complete dog shit in my part of the Bay Area. It became comically inaccurate.
The different models definitely do not produce the same output and some weather conditions are extremely difficult to predict with any accuracy (especially rain). Even the "current" conditions are often very different depending on the model since they rarely use actual observations... and even if they did the next city block over could be totally different).
Which one is the most accurate depends on your location (in particular, your latitude, proximity to the ocean, nearby mountains, etc).
Even little things like standing near (not even under) a tree can drastically alter your air temperature - because trees raise the humidity of the air around them and a slight humidity change has a drastic effect on temperature.
Apple most likely uses multiple models.
That's why when they take air temperature samples they take multiple samples from multiple locations and they explicitly don't put them under trees, behind shade, unusually high up.
If you're standing under a tree resulting in a lower air temperature that won't affect the weather prediction because the temperature isn't taken from your phone.
Per apple it looks like for the US they use the weather channel.
Apple sources it us data from the weather channel. Which is a pretty shitty source. Would be nice if they had options for the other sources.
I've noticed the same thing. I was somewhat optimistic about Apple's purchase of DarkSky and planned integration of DarkSky technology into Apple Weather. I mean, DarkSky was awesome. Surely, DarkSky technology + Apple's resources would result in the ultimate weather app! Boy, was I wrong. Apple obviously took a wrong turn somewhere because the new and improved Apple Weather is anything but.
Dark Sky was the best! All apple needed to do was rename it and yet here we are. Accurate weather reporting should be a given at this point and they can't get it right.
For you it might have been. But it went to shit for me long before the Apple announcement. As with most things location, location, location.
As other have said there are various weather models produced by different companies. And some are better in certain areas than others.
I found it hit and miss. What I don’t like is the forecast of rain in 20 mins or telling me way ahead when I used to like dark sky telling me rain in 5 mins or starting soon
“Meteorologists aren’t in agreement on how to measure the Probability of Precipitation, aka that little percentage of rain on your weather app. Some use a formula for it — PoP = C x A, where C stands for confidence and A stands for area. So if there’s a 50% chance of rain in 80% of a given area, your probability of rain becomes 40%.
More commonly, meteorologists measure PoP as the chance of rain at any given point in the area they cover during a certain period of time. This is the definition closest to the official definition from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).”
Source: https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/percent-chance-of-rain/
It’s likely Apple does something unique in how they calculate their percentages. It could legit be a fault in how they source their weather data but knowing more about the actual equation might be helpful in seeing if everyone is actually measuring the same thing, the same way.
Here's the thing: Apple is reporting a 30% possibility of rain in an area where no other weather model projects anything over 0%. It sent my kid's school into a frenzy because they were having an outdoor graduation and there was literally no chance that rain was going to fall. None.
It is pretty bad I see this often too.
Especially for last few months. Rain was pouring like hell whole morning, and app was like "mostly cloudy".
I’ve been using https://mobile.weather.gov since DarkSky died and it’s much better than Apple Weather for my area. The radar is way faster loading as well.
I wish there was a way to turn off predictive radar. It sometimes has the storm completely changing direction. So inaccurate.
Yep. The storm's going one direction consistently then as soon as the radar switches from "past" to "future" the entire storm makes a 90-degree turn.
It’s like it takes the current radar and models average wind for the area and the storm blows off to the east even when that’s not what is currently happening. Happens every time.
Oh hi fellow space city weather reader. I thought apple weather would get better after supposedly integrating the Dark Sky features in there, but it seems like there’s still a few kinks to work out.
Same thing in my country. The app says 0% rain today and next days with good weather but it hasn’t stopped heavy raining for hours.
The national Weather service has predicted rain for today during all week so it’s not something out of the blue.
We lost DarkSky for this?
Interestingly enough, in the UK it seems to be as accurate- maybe a bit more as both the Met Office and BBC Weather. It's now my preferred app.
Is this even a localized problem or all throughout the US/World? I'm in southeast Texas, USA.
I'm in Queensland, Australia, and it seems to say there's no chance of rain at all, as there's thick clouds above my head seconds from drenching me, and sure enough, I start getting drenched.
For Canadians, I recommend Environment Canada’s WeatherCAN. It’s made by the department of Environment and Climate Change. It’s got some bugs here and there, but, most importantly to me, I find that it’s actually accurate.