A major ice and snow storm is hitting huge parts of the United States this week, and in preparing for the storm, I was watching the forecasts closely across a slew of different weather apps for Android. And, sadly, Pixel Weather was perhaps one of the least accurate I was using.
Millions are being affected this weekend by a major winter storm that’s leaving the southern US covered in ice, and the northeast bracing for inches of snow. And, through the past week, I’ve been checking several different weather apps on Android trying to get a sense of what to expect. That was both for my personal safety, and for a charity tournament that I really didn’t want to reschedule knowing what lies ahead for an icy North Carolina in the next couple of weeks. With a lot on the line, finding the most accurate forecast was really important to me.
Yet, as many of you know, no two weather apps will ever say exactly the same thing.
As such, I was using 6 different forecast apps (and websites) to make my plans – AccuWeather, Weather Underground (Wunderground), “Hyperlocal Dark Sky Tech & Radar,” Foreca, The Weather Channel, and Google’s Pixel Weather.
Cutting right to the chase, at least in my area of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, AccuWeather gets the crown. It was the only app that predicted that this storm would deliver more ice than snow, and it always had the timeline right of it landing on Saturday evening. And that really aligned with my use of AccuWeather over the past couple of years. While it can certainly be wrong, as any weather forecast can, more often than not it gives me a pretty accurate long(ish)-range forecast. Weather Channel was right up there as well, though I loathe using that website as it has so many ads it actively slows down any device I’m using.
What stood out to me this week was just how far off Pixel Weather was, and how far off it continues to be in the midst of the storm.
Pixel Weather was adamant that my area would see a lot of snow, with the forecast ranging from 10-30 inches depending on the day. And through the week, it could never decide on when that would start, with times ranging from mid-morning to late at night. Most of the other apps I was using were all pretty certain that the precipitation wouldn’t begin until at least the late afternoon.
But, frankly, that’s why I was using several different forecasting apps in the first place. I always knew that no one would agree and that, ultimately, I’d need to keep an eye on everything and look for the patterns to figure out what would happen. That’s how I figured out that Pixel Weather was pretty far off the mark. And I wasn’t alone there. As Droid-Life highlighted, despite Google using weather models to make its predictions, its AI applied to those models seems to miss the mark when what’s coming isn’t all that straightforward.
And that’s continuing right in the middle of the storm.
I’m writing this after having spent a couple of hours shoveling snow that fell overnight, around an inch or two as most of the forecasts predicted would happen. But as I was out in the cold, Pixel Weather insisted that I should be seeing snow right there and then as freezing rain was pelting me in the face, as it’s been doing most of the morning. A lot more ice is what’s in the forecast through the next 12 hours in my area, but Pixel Weather insists that not only should it be snowing right this minute, but that snow is all we’ll be seeing through the end of today. The only mention of ice is buried under the “Precipitation” page where Google doesn’t give any nuance whatsoever in what should be coming later today.
For someone in my area, looking solely at the Pixel Weather app would be a problem.
Snow is one thing, but travel in ice can be very dangerous, and the amount we’ll get should play a huge role in preparation. Foreca, one of the other weather apps that I felt was the least accurate this week, has the same issue. No mention of ice tonight, just a prediction of 8 inches of snow that no one else is making.
Of course, this is all anecdotal.
Going back to those reports that Droid-Life surfaced, a clear-cut example of Pixel Weather’s deficiencies can be seen up in Canada, where there’s an 8-degree difference in the temperature Pixel Weather is showing versus what an actual weather station right nearby is showing, as one user reports. And in reply, just like me, there are users who noticed just how different Google’s forecast was compared to others over the past few days.
Predicting the weather is very complicated, especially in storms like this one. But these complicated situations serve as a really good reminder that you shouldn’t get all of your information from one place. The weather app on your phone, regardless of which one you’re using, will never be fully accurate.
Let us know in the comments below what weather apps you’ve been using and, for everyone affected by this storm, stay safe!
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