Don’t Trust Those Weather Apps, Wyoming

A weather app on your phone is useful.

But only for a day or so out.

There are many different weather apps to choose from and they all rely on whatever computer model the maker of the app decided to attach it to.

As our regional weatherman Don Day often says,

Models are tools, not reality.

Despite our best technology, we are still learning a lot about the weather.

It's okay to look at a forecast for the next 2 or 3 days.

Meteorologists have a hard time predicting 5 days out.

So, you can just forget that 10-day forecast.

If anyone tells you they know what the weather is going to be in 10, 30, or 50 years, just laugh in their face.

Also, most weather apps don't have a meteorologist who knows your area watching it and adding local data based on regional knowledge.

In other words, it's a program, not a person.

So far this winter we've had a couple of weather systems come our way that were complicated.

Those different computer models, along with meteorologists, were confused and in disagreement about how the storm would play out in our area.

Not a single computer model or human meteorologist was able to accurately say what was going to happen until the day before the storm.

It is Wednesday morning as I write this story. 01/10/23.

We know that his weekend will be bitterly cold and there is a good chance of snow.

How cold and how much snow is still an unknown.

You'll have to wait until Thursday before an accurate prediction of Friday's weather can be made.

If you want a real example of this, look at the forecast for 10 days from now and keep an eye on it.

You'll see that the forecast for that date will continue to change as we get closer to it, meaning nobody knew what was going to happen until we got closer.