Ask HN: Why are we so bad at weather forecasting?

1 points by q-base 6y ago ↗ HN

Before leaving the office today I checked 3 different weather apps, all of them said 0% chance of rain. As you have probably guessed I got 100% wet on the way home. Why are we still in 2019 so incredibly bad at weather forecasts or even just saying what the weather is exactly at this moment?

3 comments

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sarcasmatwork 6y ago ↗

What are the sources you checked?

We have the tech and I understand the frustration. Depends on the weather stations and their locations. I check at least these two: wunderground.com, windy.com

q-base 6y ago ↗

Perhaps you are just better in US? I am in Denmark, Europe. I used the weather app from Apple, DMI (Official danish weather forecast) and finally a Norwegian called YR. But over and over again I find that none of them can even just tell me the weather I can see out my window and I even live in the capital so it is not like I live in some remote area.

howard941 6y ago ↗

If by "we" you mean NWS forecasts in general they're incredibly good out to 3 days. Forecast verification is a thing and you can check the service's own stats at https://www.weather.gov/mdl/verification_home .