News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Weather forecasts have become much more accurate by Etheryte on Tuesday March 12, 2024 @02:26PM (#39683034)
I can't even begin to count how many times I've had this conversation with Siri.

"Hey Siri, is it going to rain?"

"It doesn't look like it's going to rain today."

"It's raining right now."

"It isn't raining right now."

Re:Weather forecasts have become much more accurate by throw0101d on Tuesday March 12, 2024 @03:29PM (#39683829)
> I can't even begin to count how many times I've had this conversation with Siri.

I live in Toronto, Canada, which stretches about 40km east-west, and 20km north-south:

If the west-end (Sherway) gets hit with rain, but the east-end is dry, did it rain "in" Toronto when folks in Scarborough didn't experience it? Was the forecast wrong?

If it snows in North York but is dry at Billy Bishop, was the precipitation forecast "wrong" for one particular group of people?

Re:Weather forecasts have become much more accurate by Etheryte on Tuesday March 12, 2024 @05:31PM (#39685221)
Apple Weather uses your precise location if you allow it to, meaning it knows your location down to a meter, network and positioning issues etc notwithstanding. It doesn't have to guess your weather based on "Toronto", it knows your GPS coordinates. There is no technical limitation here, as I outlined in a separate comment thread [0], other apps already give you weather data and predictions with this granularity.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39683660

Re:Weather forecasts have become much more accurate by sznio on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @05:58AM (#39689667)
>It doesn't have to guess your weather based on "Toronto", it knows your GPS coordinates.

Meanwhile the Google Weather app constantly insists I live in Frankfurt while I'm in Warsaw.

Re:Weather forecasts have become much more accurate by StefanBatory on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @06:34AM (#39689889)
Fur Deutschland...

On a serious note I'm dealing with this as well - I live in a middle-sized city in the centre of the country, not in Kraków!

Re:Weather forecasts have become much more accurate by throw0101d on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @08:34AM (#39690619)
> There is no technical limitation here, as I outlined in a separate

The technical limitation would be on the weather data size: what is the granularity/resolution of the radar data on where rain is actually falling?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_weather_radar_network

Further: what is the geography of the area, and how does that effect things as well? Toronto specifically has (a) all sort of heat island effects, (b) certain areas are effected by the lake and how weather systems cross it at certain angles, and (c) has enough of an elevation change going north of the lake (e.g., Niagara Escarpment) that there are a few ˚C change in temperature that makes the differences between snow and rain.

Re:Weather forecasts have become much more accurate by viraptor on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @08:22AM (#39690533)
This exists on a smaller scale too. I'm in a town perfectly covered by a small hill range from the direction the wind is coming 99% of the time. This means almost every forecast for rain is valid 3km south and north of me, but not in the town itself.
Re:Weather forecasts have become much more accurate by lotsofpulp on Tuesday March 12, 2024 @03:09PM (#39683546)
Why would you expect Siri to know if it is raining at your specific location? Surely there exists an edge where on one side it is raining and on the other it is not raining.

So unless you are sitting next to the the weather station that Siri is getting data from, I would not expect it to know 100% of the time.

Re:Weather forecasts have become much more accurate by Etheryte on Tuesday March 12, 2024 @03:17PM (#39683660)
I live in the Netherlands. The local weather apps tell me when it's going to rain with nearly minute precision, along with cloud maps with scrollable time, graphs of how heavy the rain will be at what time, etc. It's pure nonsense to claim this is a technical limitation when other apps do it with ease. No one is expecting it to be right 100% of the time, but Apple Weather is wrong about rain most of the time, even on a crude scale of say, a city.
Re:Weather forecasts have become much more accurate by ceejayoz on Tuesday March 12, 2024 @04:31PM (#39684550)
> Why would you expect Siri to know if it is raining at your specific location?

I don't, but as a result, I expect it not to guess.

Re:Weather forecasts have become much more accurate by Filligree on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @10:00AM (#39691297)
But you’re asking it to guess, and it’s usually right. Surely that’s better than having it refuse to offer a suggestion.