Cloudy with a Chance of Bullshit (2018)

This seems to imply that there isn&#x27;t any high-resolution precipitation data available that could provide these &quot;minute-by-minute&quot; forecasts, but that isn&#x27;t true. The National Weather Service provides several radar products that give data with resolutions in the range of 500 m using their NEXRAD technology[0]. This allows for some pretty good estimates of when precipitation will start and end over the next hour or so. This kind of forecast product is called a precipitation nowcast. Other nations have similar systems.<p>If you use the NOAA desktop tool[1] to view the data from NEXRAD stations, you can compare to services like DarkSky and see that they are very likely using it without much editing.<p>The simplest nowcasts use optical flow techniques rather than meteorological modelling. On short time scales (less than an hour), these methods can give passable results. I built a tool[2] that pulls this NWS data from their Web server and gives you a nowcast.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Nexrad#Super_resolution" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Nexrad#Super_resolution</a><p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncdc.noaa.gov&#x2F;wct&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncdc.noaa.gov&#x2F;wct&#x2F;</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;bmgxyz&#x2F;threecast" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;bmgxyz&#x2F;threecast</a>

I&#x27;m not a huge enthusiast for home automation (we don&#x27;t use any voice assistants), but we have a few Mirabella IoT light globes that can turn on&#x2F;off on a schedule or in response to weather conditions.<p>Mainly I just have lights turn on before sunset, which works fine, but one of the programs I set up was for some indoor lights to turn on when it rains, as it usually gets quite gloomy here during rain.<p>It&#x27;s quite common for that program to activate and turn the lights on when it&#x27;s hot and sunny with no rain or clouds anywhere nearby.<p>I gather it must be because they&#x27;re using this kind of weather forecast data and not doing any live&#x2F;recent updating.

Take this with a grain of salt, but I’ve heard that there are stupid legal reasons (lobbied for by the private sector) why government agencies such as the NOAA are prohibited from offering their own apps or services. If that’s true then I think it might be worth directing your anger there first and foremost.

&gt; Basically, there’s no reliable way for users to get vetted weather information on their phones.<p>Browsers should work, right? I check the (Australian) Bureau of Meteorology website all the time on my phone. We use it to plan family trips and when to do the washing.

I prefer to use ventusky free version and make up my own mind based on experience.

Cloudy is my all time favorite animated movie. Absolutely nothing comes close.<p>The flidsfdfr, the reporter girl, the character development and interaction, all great.

The iPhone had a barometer for 3 years before this article was written. I believe Dark Sky used the barometer to detect changes in air pressure.

I use yr.no, local mountain rescue service uses them. And I am not in Norway, so I guess it says a lot about the reputation.

Unrelated to the topic, but I still don&#x27;t understand how The Outline got away with launching with such a seizure-inducing design.