Submitted 3 weeks ago by NotJohnSmith@feddit.uk to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://feddit.uk/pictrs/image/c7734f66-fa71-4508-8969-7f429ba319ce.webp
I noticed that accuweather measures snow differently to rain. Rain is in mm but snow is in cm - that’s mildly infuriating to me.
It makes sense, though.
It’s a different measurement for a different type of precipitation.
And snow has about 1/10 the density of water on average, so going from mm to cm makes sense.
Accuweather is the cancer of the meteorology community. They spend a shitload of money lobbying to privatize public weather data. All my homies hate AccuWeather.
Thanks for letting us know, in fact it may be worth a today I learned style post because I don’t think people know this
Today I learnt! Will look for a non US one to switch to as slowly doing that anyway. Thanks
I’d recommend weawow, it’s what I normally use. You can choose a source for your weather data, rather than just being stuck with whatever the developer chooses. Weather underground is okay. It used to be a lot better before IBM bought them out, but the UI isn’t too terrible. Carrot is also somewhat decent from what I remember.
If you need a rock solid radar app, radarscope is phenomenal. If you’re into viewing predictive model data, flowx is probably my most used weather app during non-tornado season.
This is how it always is and has been. One mm of rain is equivalent to one cm of snow.
But snow can have wildly different densities. I find it hard to believe that this is true.
Isn’t that because it’s different measurement techniques? Mm rain is measured in a standardized meteorological cylinder contraption. If snow is measured in one of these cylinders they do mm of meltwater if I remember correctly. The centimeters are the height of the snow cover on the ground if it doesn’t melt right away.
I’ve heard that 1cm of snow corresponds roughly to 1 mm water when melted, so basically all they need to do is check the cylinder and replace the unit.
Only it’s not a cylinder but more like a funnel, where snow can clog up the upper part and not even reach the cylindrical part.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_(unit)
Britain
Main article: English units of measurement
A digit (lat. digitus, “finger”), when used as a unit of length, is usually a sixteenth of a foot or 3/4" (1.905 cm for the international inch).[6] The width of an adult human male finger tip is indeed about 2 centimetres.
Full standardization on decidigits it is!
At least it’s all metric so it’s only mildly infuriating and not useless
No, not often at all. Sounds like I’m mildly ignorant rather than it being mildlyinfuriating
It’s called science. The weather office in my country measures the precipitation the same way.
They also like to downgrade whichever paid version of the app you have every couple of years and introduce a new extra-premium-plus-pro tier. Accurate predictions but scammy bullshitters selling it. Weawow can use same prediction models without rewarding bait-and-switch assholes.
I don’t think they actually do any weather forecasting. Last I heard, all the weather apps are getting forecasts from the National Weather Service (part of the NOAA). Which makes the bait-and-switch that much more infuriating.
Agreed all, I think if snow was inches it would edge it beyond mildly.
I’d not considered protocol but did calm down quickly when you appreciate that some places can get a large volume of snow so using a larger scale is reasonable.
bonenode@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Isn’t that just standard convention? Rain is always measured in mm, and Snow makes no sense to measure in a unit as small as mm, therefore cm.
May be related to that rain is measured by filling up a measuring cylinder standing around. Doesn’t really work with snow as it takes a bit before it packs nicely.
Hjalamanger@feddit.nu 3 weeks ago
No, as far as I know the convention is to measure by melted height. Although this may be more useful for actually understand how much snow fell. Measured by molten height, the actual snow is about ten times as deep