Jonathon Lacher

My little blog

Where I get my weather forecasts

Posted at — Jul 16, 2020

I’ve been an Android user for the last 10 years, and for the last 3-4 years I’ve been using the Dark Sky weather app.

However they recently announce they’re shutting down the Android app, so I’ve been researching which weather services will fit my needs.

For near-term weather (the next 12-120 hours) I use the National Weather Service, I especially like the Area Forcast Discussion which is written a human, and gives insight and more color into the weather than just reading a 5 day forecast.

I’ve set a shortcut on my homescreen to the mobile version of the National Weather Service. I’ll be honest, it’s not super pretty, but it’s practical.

Forecast accuracy

Before you take my suggestions, look at ForecastAdvisor to determine which weather service is the most accurate for your area. In my area there are 10 different services with distinct forecasts ranging from 78% to 53% over the last year, so it’s important to not use the most terrible one.

In weather forecasting, the persistence forecast is using today’s weather as tomorrows forecast. In my area persistence accuracy is 43%, but in places like Los Angeles it’s 67%. Hopefully the weather service you choose is better than that.