Do you check the weather online? How about on your phone app? Possibly your smart speaker, i.e. Google Home Mini, Amazon Echo Dot, or others that do not have quite the followers? Many still remain loyal to TV, radio and/or newspapers.
Weather is one of the top ten most searched items according to Google’s 2018 figures. I know that my wife and I both check the weather in the mornings via our phones or Google Mini. Then again, the night before the next day. Not that we forget from night until morning (well mostly we don’t) but it sometimes changes so rapidly.
If you are an e-Weather explorer, where do you get your weather information? Here is a list of some of the most popular places people check the weather through apps or online. I have included them in alphabetical order along with the temperature and sky reports at the time I wrote this. The surprising thing to me is that they mostly agreed today.
Alexa which uses data from AccuWeather.com – 27°F mostly sunny. DarkSky.net, a relatively new site which has an ominous name; however, it is listed as one of the best sites for local weather – 28°F clear. Google which uses the Weather Channel’s Weather.com site – 26°F sunny. NOAA/National Weather Service, Weather.gov – 28°F mostly sunny. WeatherBug.com – 27°F partly cloudy. Wunderground.com – 25°F sunny.
The one I have as a phone app is Weather Underground, Wunderground.com. I also use it regularly on my computer since I have it bookmarked in my browser.
Do I believe it is the most accurate? Sometimes. Do I believe it has the best information? Sometimes. How about the best radar/satellite data? In my opinion, they are probably using the same satellites and if not a picture of Earth should be the same no matter who broadcasts it. That last part is opinion and open to speculation.
Sometimes it does make me wonder. My wife uses an iPhone and I use an Android phone. We have noticed that sometimes we will both check it using the same app, from the same weather forecaster and find out the temperature and maybe the sky conditions are off, sometimes in a big way. One may say it is 54°F and the other 48°F which I think is a big difference. Or one says sunny and the other says overcast.
Of course, to settle it (which really is not that vital but a fun "game" none-the-less) we visit the website to verify. There it will be totally different. To me, it seems as if the individual companies could make their own reporting match. But as my father-in-law used to say, "Where else could you be a success at your job when you are wrong 50% of the time?"
By-the-way, a person in Chesapeake, VA posted their TV weather screen on Facebook at the end of last month. Look below and have a laugh. I think it is hilarious.
