Whining About Weather Apps

Business Insider published an article today complaining about weather apps.

The article has a whole host of issues:

• Overreliance on college professors as sources. Many, if not most, have never made a forecast outside a classroom in their entire careers. 
• The college professors say, "forecasts have never been better." There is a wealth of evidence that is not true. 
• Government forecasters are not routinely relying on AI. 
• There is a wide range in quality in apps. Some are slap-dash output straight from computers. Others use well-qualified meteorologists to develop their forecasts. AccuWeather is one of those. 
• One businessperson complained about the forecast of rain resulting in only thunder that could be heard. That thunder was created by lightning -- which can kill or injure. Sounds like a good forecast to me.

I would be happy to tell you which are the good apps and which are the bad. The problem is that, I don't know. As a meteorologist, when it is important and when I have enough time, I often make my own forecast. 

Last Friday, my uncle called with regard to this week's forecast because he wants to put a new roof on his house. I have plenty of confidence in the AccuWeather app, so I opened it up. It had low probabilities of rain earlier in the week and we had intervals of sprinkles. But, for Thursday (six days later), it had a 60% chance. We got 2.6 inches of rain last night! That was a terrific forecast. 

While I am no longer associated with AccuWeather, I was amused by many of the comments about their app. This is from a 2-star review. Forecasts "great," he didn't like the graphics. 

There was a 1-star review complimenting the Massachusetts forecasts but he graded it down because he wasn't impressed with the European forecasts while on vacation. My point is that many review weather apps differently than meteorologists. We look at the quality of the forecasts where we live and work.

In Wichita, a brand new amusement park went out of business in 2007, its first summer of operation. Why? It was an extremely wet summer and there numerous tornado watches (many of which were correct). It is important not to blame the meteorologist when we correctly forecast adverse weather. Remember: We are in marketing, not production.