Cloudy with a slight chance of accuracy
(Originally published August 2024)
In the old days, people got their weather forecasts by looking out toward the pasture to see if the cows were lying down. Now we have weather apps.
I’m not sure they’re an improvement.
Unlike the cows, whose behavior is open to a lay forecaster’s interpretation, these apps give a level of meteorological detail that suggests they know exactly what’s going to happen.
And I keep falling for it.
“My weather app pretends to know the future.”
My app provides granular forecasts for every hour of this day—and the next. If I need to know what the barometric pressure or maximum wind gusts will be tomorrow at noon, it can tell me.
Or so it says.
Now, unlike some people, I’ve never blamed meteorologists for not being 100 percent accurate in their predictions. It’s not like a storm front is contractually obligated to stick to a predetermined path.
But my weather app pretends to know the future.
Each morning, I check the app and give Mark an unsolicited rundown of what he can expect. “It’s currently 69 degrees with 94 percent humidity,” I say. “At 3 p.m., it will be 84 degrees with a ‘real feel’ of 90 in the shade and 92 in the sun.”
He doesn’t care, possibly because he will be working outside regardless. The only thing that might affect his plans is rain.
“Let’s see,” I say, scrolling. “There is a 51 percent chance of 0.10 inches of rain at 11 a.m.”
He looks at me.
“That is a stupid app,” he says.
I agree that “51 percent” is a squirrelly figure. And on days when I’d like to hang out laundry, it even has a bit of a Dirty Harry taunt to it. “Do you feel lucky? Well? Do you, punk?”
Last week, however, was my breaking point with the app. I don’t know if you noticed, but the weather was hot and humid. My mood fell somewhere between “grumpy bear” and “homicidal maniac.”
Two Sundays ago, the app had told me that the heat would move out Tuesday. I accordingly postponed any physical activities—such as vacuuming or gardening or break dancing—until after that.
But on Monday, the app changed its mind, indicating that the weather would break Wednesday instead.
Fine.
Only it kept adding another day to the hot spell, until I began to suspect that the forecast was being generated not by complex meteorological models but by a gang of middle schoolers playing a prank.
By Sunday, the sixth “last day” of the heat wave, I was avoiding any movement that might cause me to sweat, such as blinking too fast. Then, mid-morning, the app suddenly promised a 75 percent chance of a thunderstorm dropping 0.35 inches of rain at 1 p.m., with a 10-degree drop in the temperature afterward. Relief at last!
I checked the app every 30 seconds. The radar showed a green blob with a red center—a thunderstorm!—heading our way. I needed this.
The wind picked up. The sky got darker. The thunder rumbled. I sat on my hands to keep from clapping.
Mark ignored me.
“Heavy rain starting in seven minutes!” I yelled, reading from the app. He sighed.
And then something strange happened: absolutely nothing. Not a thing.
The skies lightened and the stifling mugginess returned. We were right back in the hot soup. Seriously?
I checked my app. The blob on the radar screen had disappeared. The forecast was now for the same old waffly 51 percent chance of rain (0.01 inches, anyway) in the next hour.
Was the app gaslighting me?
I threw myself on the floor and pounded the rug, wailing.
Mark stepped over my prostrate body on his way to the kitchen, saying, “You have issues.”
My “issue” is believing that if you are going to give me a thorough, up-to-the-minute weather forecast that promises a long-awaited break in the oppressive heat and has me counting down the seconds until it happens, you need to follow through on your promise.
Later that afternoon, we did get that much-needed storm. But by then I had lost all faith in the app and wasn’t buying what it was selling, even as the rain swept over us.
With the subsequent cooler temperatures, however, I had a moment of clarity: Why do I rely on this technology, when it seems to be mostly bluffing? I don’t need a dumb weather app.
I need cows.
