How Accurate is Your Cell Phone at Weather Prediction

[TX-Dennis]

The weirdest thing just happened.

The weather app on my Motorola cellphone said rain starting in 33 minutes, so I set a timer just for fun. When the timer went off I went outside, and it rained . . . a whole three or four drops. Now it says periods of rain and thunderstorms will continue for at least 120 minutes.

No more rain so far just wind and lightning.

 

[Rustyt1953]

I'm trying to get past "accurate" and "weather prediction" being in the same sentence.

 

[Rastoff]

My phone has no weather predicting ability. I do have a couple of weather applications though. They're pretty good.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

The weather apps that come with a Verizon Droid suck! It has been known to say "Sunny" until 5 minutes after the rain starts then say "Rain/Showers"!

I go to the radar map and zoom in to the town Northwest of us. I then know what will happen in 15 minutes!

Ivan

 

[Texas Star]

My iPhone 5C can be set for the exact city. It may vary between Dallas and the suburb north of me where a brother lives.

It was pretty accurate most of the time, but the weather function has disappeared in the past two weeks.

I'm going to ask my brother why. He's a software engineer who knows computers well and can probably restore that function.

 

[BC38]

My phone has no weather predicting ability. I do have a couple of weather applications though. They're pretty good.

Exactly. My Samsung S5 has a "weather widget" built-in app on the home screen that is just a link to the data on the Accuweather site.

It's pretty good. Better than the weatherman, and it updates a lot more often. Plus I can configure it to be able to flip between the weather for up to 10 locations of my choosing. That used to come in REALLY handy when I was maintaining 16 facilities spread across 2 states - including getting their parking lots plowed in the wintertime and getting generators set up when they would lose power.

Nowadays I just use it to check local weather, weather at the airport, and weather at my lake cabin since I retired.

 

[rwsmith]

I go to a couple of websites....

Usually they are right, a couple of times they were WAY off, even about the present weather. I looked at another site and there was no similarity. Weird.

Weather.com usually.

Accuweather

Been a while since I used weather underground.

 

[Salty RI]

Mine is not bad except for the temp, it gets it from the north end of town, and the temp where I am can be 10 to 15 degrees cooler, the other day it said the rain would start at 11 am, it started at 11:03, it was wrong.

Sent from my LGL52VL using Tapatalk

 

[DocB]

The Weather Channel app is amazing. I don't know how they do it for a remote place like where I live.

 

[CCHGN]

I'm trying to get past "accurate" and "weather prediction" being in the same sentence.

oxymoron....lol

 

[CCHGN]

No cell phone service, but better, we live next to a big AFB bombing range and they bomb ( ahhh, the sound of freedom) just before a rain. Plus we have a weather dog, she barks a specific bark(between a bark and whine), just before it rains. She hates lightning , like I do.

 

[JSR III]

My IPhone weather app is pretty good. It even moves from town to town as I move location. Normally the reports are fairly close to reality but one must remember that it it not the phone that is giving you the weather but some central site that is merely sending data to your phone.

I have always stated that if and when I come back in another life, I want to come back as a weatherman on a top news channel. You make like $500,000 a year and you only have to be right about 50% of the time. Unlike a doctor or a lawyer, nobody sues you when you make a mistake.

 

[joeintexas]

It was very accurate when we lived in west Texas, it said hot and dry every day and it was.

 

[TX-Dennis]

I thought it was strange that the screen actually showed two raindrops and the words starting in 33 minutes. I'd never seen that before, but then it doesn't rain much here. I decided to test it just for fun. It was almost supernaturally accurate to the minute.

After the first few drops the screen changed to the two raindrops and the text for 120 min. Opening the weather app it said periods of rain and thunderstorms for at least the next 120 minutes. That turned out to be accurate as well. We got a nice rain last night for the first time in a month or so that ended pretty much on "schedule."

My previous Samsung had a different weather widget that I found more visually pleasing. This one is just a circle with the time in the middle and weather information at the top, but it certainly got it right last night.

 

[yeti]

Forecast accurate? HA!
I'm better off just looking up at the damn sky.

Honestly the Weather Channel app isn't too bad within 48hrs out. Beyond that who knows...it is purely entertainment.

 

[Andy Lowry]

The "Dark Skies" application on iOS is very good. Forecasts also available at their website.

 

[cherrypointmarine]

I told my daughter the best job to have is a weatherman . Now really , have you ever heard of one getting in trouble because he/she was wrong ? Who would you go to to complain ? Here in Florida all you have to say is hot in the summer ( March to October ) with a 50% chance of rain , the rest of the year it's nice out . Ha , maybe I can be one , at least in Fl.

 

[tg4360]

Most of the weather apps use a combination of weather model data and parsing the text forecasts from (if in the US) the National Weather Service and other For Pay services.

Is do better by just keeping an eye on the regional satellite and radar views.

The wallpaper on my phone is the weather radar.

 

[Roadtrash]

I get one temp reading on my phone another on my tablet and another on my computer. Then I check the TV and it is different as well. After checking all these devices I look at my thermometer and it is different from all the others. Five different devices and a different temp reading on all of them so I usually just go by the thermometer that I have hanging. As for the weather I live in the desert so I don't even have to look outside most times cause I know it is going to be sunny and hot.

 

[lkabug]

Most of the time.......if is raining my weather app will show that it is raining.