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bastawhiz | on: WeatherNext 3
It's great that they're working on this, but I am puzzled at how absolutely awful the forecasts are in the Google weather app for my area. The forecast will show no rain, the radar view shows nothing, meanwhile it's pouring outside and every other app I check shows it. I know I can't expect it to be perfect, but being terribly wrong even one in ten times is enough to tarnish its reputation permanently.
jedberg | parent | next
It's because the current administration cut NOAAs funding, which means fewer weather balloons, which means less data to make a prediction. And it means less real time updates.

So yeah, when it rains, it might take a few hours for that to flow into your weather app.

It's a direct result of DOGE.

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rtpg | parent | next
This isn't a super serious comment (and an opportunity for someone to speak up on this) but...

I've heard some commentary in the past that 5G interferes with data measurements heavily used for weather forecasts (something about satellite measurements?)

I remember being _very_ impressed like 15 years ago about how I would have _hourly_ weather forecasts (in particular around the rain) that seemed like magic! And then things... seemed to slowly get worse (at least in Tokyo)

a couple years ago I was chatting with a friend in Kyoto. They used to live in Tokyo and had made the _exactly_ aligned comment like: "I was used to the rain forecasts being not so accurate anymore. After moving to Kyoto they seemed to be quite good! And now they're also bad here. Am I cursed?"

I looked at some 5G rollout maps and you could see Kyoto rollout happened a bit around the time frame they were complaining about....

Anyways I think for most people (at least for myself) weather forecasting seems like this odd dark magic that can't work at all, but there was a window in which it _felt_ like it was super accurate. At least in my personal experience

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MPSimmons | parent | next
Weather 2 doesn't seem to have been an ensemble model. Weather 3 is, so theoretically it can get more accurate outcomes by taking the probabilistic analysis of several models concurrently to determine the most likely weather conditions.

I'm building a tool right now that uses an ensemble to determine wind gust likelihood, which is useful for safety critical work on construction sites and the like.

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exhilaration | parent | next
The Google daily and hourly forecasts aren't great, but the weather map forecast is excellent. Where does that come from? What's generating the predicted movement of the storm clouds?
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notatoad | parent | next
does google actually use their own models in consumer products? i'm not an android user, but the weather widget in the google search results for my area always seems to be attributed to weather.com.
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timmg | parent | next
Same experience.

As a former Googler, I wouldn't at all be surprised if this is an integration that is "planned" -- but just not done yet.

And some good handful of people are planning to wring a promo out of work. "Implemented weather UI in Android that is 63% more accurate." ;)

thedub | parent | next
At one point they did release the most accurate weather model by far, but it actually decreased usage compared to showing a weather forecast more skewed towards "happy" temperatures and weather. I'm certain this is still the case and likely explains why you are seeing a more positive (no rain) version of the weather.
phoghed | parent | next
I see the same sentiment any time any weather app is posted. Especially when Dark Sky comes up
gonzalohm | parent | next
Same experience. I moved to Windy and I just look at the weather radar and make my own prediction.

I guesstimate that it has less than 50% accuracy for my area

clumsysmurf | parent
Same here, if its raining Windy.com radar will always show it, but often Google Weather does not show it, despite saying its updated "now". Sometimes it seems to be a tiling issue, where there will be a blob of rain on the map but cut off at some boundary over the forecast area.