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.
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.
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.
Why don’t they just make a deal with a reputable meteorology group, and just use their reports.
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.
“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.
Especially for last few months. Rain was pouring like hell whole morning, and app was like “mostly cloudy”.
It is pretty bad I see this often too.
