Torrington, WY (Western Ag Network) January 17th, 2024 — On today’s Daybreak Ag Report from the Western Ag Network, Lane Nordlund talked about the accuracy of weather forecasts on mobile apps.

Nordlund called the weather apps “unreliable,” and recalled a conversation that he had last week with Andrew Pritchard, Senior Meteorologist at Nutrien Ag. Pritchard said that forecasts on a weather app are usually weather models.

“We like convenience. It’s nice to open up a weather app and it just spits out a weather forecast for you. The truth is, when there’s no meteorologist that’s quality controlling that data, you’re looking at a weather model. Weather models are tools – they’re very useful tools – but, they are most useful when you have a meteorologist looking at it and saying: “Hey, this model is crazy with that high temperature,” or “predicting individual thunderstorms.””

“You have to understand that it is just a direct computer forecast. No one has looked at it to say whether or not it makes sense, and that’s why they’re always changing and sometimes wrong.”