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by nate·2y ago·view on hn ↗
Tangent maybe. But when I used Dark Sky, I and everyone who asked me about the weather and I'd give them data from Dark Sky were always impressed by my accuracy for knowing when it would rain and stop raining. Now I use Carrot with the AccuWeather(sp) api, and it'll be pouring right on top of me, and Carrot tells me "no rain for the hour". Is this just weather getting harder and harder to predict, or is AccuWeather trash, or anyone else find something that seems as accurate as Dark Sky was?
4 comments
I find the same issues with Apple's weather app. And even Windy's notifications. The only helpful thing is an actual heatmap visualization of rain. That always gives you a lot more context and a better understanding of what's happening and for how long. I actually really love Apple's rain heatmap
One of the many reasons I pay for Carrot is to get the other, more expensive, data sources. If you do stump up, you get access to the Apple Weather API--what once was Dark Sky--as well as Foreca. I've found both of them to be very accurate based on what Carrot reports.

(For what it's worth, I never used the Dark Sky app directly. I've always consumed it via Carrot or a free API key that Dark Sky used to give out for individual developers.)

Seemed like more of a gimmick to me.

Many times it would say something like Rain stopping in 10 minutes. Then 8 minutes later… Rain stopping in 15 minutes. On and on as it steadily rained.

My former coworker was insufferable about Dark Sky being accurate but I never found that to be the case. Same with his insistence I use Waze to go through random parking lots, only to find our cowokers beat us back from lunch using a sane route but I am digressing.

Where I am big thunderstorms are very common and it can be dry a quarter mile away. It’s a good indicator but I never found Dark Sky, Accuwhatever, or Apple Weather to be accurate with the rain forecast.