Comment on Why are weather apps so bad at telling you the current weather?

captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

I am a pilot and flight instructor. I took a full year of meteorology at ERAU. Most weather forecast products presented to the general public are completely worthless, and we really should run “AccuWeather” out of business.

The temperature number they show you for what it is “now” was probably taken by the AWOS at the closest municipal airport to your location. If you’ve ever noticed like a car GPS reporting weather from three towns over and not the one you’re in right now, it’s because the town you’re in right now doesn’t have a nearby airport or it doesn’t have an AWOS.

10-day forecasts are generated by tarot cards and have no basis in reality. Actual aviation weather forecasts seldom reach out beyond 24 hours.

Your best bet for getting a complete understanding of the weather is to start by looking at the GOES satellite imagery, ie actually look at the Earth from geosynchronous orbit and look at the clouds. You know those maps with the blue lines with triangles on them and red lines with half circles and big blue Hs and big red Ls? Those are called Prognostic charts, those map where high and low pressure systems and fronts are. Look at one of those and compare them to the satellite images. Then look at Doppler radar imagery, which shows where precipitation is. Look at what it’s been doing for the last few hours, and then you can get a good sense of generally what the weather is going to do in the next few hours. Beyond that, not even God knows because the prick hasn’t decided yet.

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