You may look at your phone and see the snow icon on your phone’s weather app. But can that be trusted?
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With the chance of winter weather later in the week, you may look at your phone and see the snow icon on your phone’s weather app. Many people get excited when they see the little snowflake emoji on their phone, but we’re wondering: are these apps always true?
OUR SOURCES:
If you have an iPhone, over the next few days you’ll see the icon on Apple’s weather app change for this upcoming weekend. One day it predicts there might be snow. The next day, it’ll predict sunshine.
That’s because the app and our weather impact team forecast differently.
“You have to be really careful online because people gravitate towards that,” Mulcahy advised. “What [the Apple app] is saying is there is a chance, but it’s not always true because there are a lot of limitations when it comes to those cell phones.”
He notes that while most of these weather apps work by using algorithms to interpret data, weather models, and locations from sources, our meteorologists look at several different variables.
“A lot of these weather apps — it’s a ‘track mind’. As meteorologists we look at several models to say ‘that one is out to lunch, that one is actually pretty accurate’ so most times they have one model,” Mulcahy said.
He also said most weather apps will post a snow icon even if there is just a chance for one minute of precipitation.
“If there is a chance that one of those hours is going to have snow, that is going to have a snow icon,” he said. “You could have a brief mix of snow for a few minutes and the models are going to pick up on that and you are going to have a snow icon for the entirety of that Saturday.”
When it comes to other mobile weather apps, consider other sources and don’t jump the gun before anticipating a snow day.
Contact Meghan Bragg at mbragg@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
