It’s Raining Weather Temperatures All Over the Place
After a week of measuring data, I came to a conclusion that was both unsurprising and shocking at the same time. To explain, I didn't find it surprising that the weathermen were pretty dramatically off. I mean, that was the whole point of watching the temperatures. I did find it surprising just how far they were off sometimes. (although, I'd like to note that a lot of the inaccuracy is based on the use of confusing graphics, it's not helpful to have to interpret a table in the ten seconds they leave it on a screen if the information is not organized well...)
If you want to see the charts, here are the highs and lows. The white line is actual temperature.
Here's an easier to understand breakdown:
High temperature difference:
WTHR: 25
WISH: 14 (one day missing from report)
FOX: 36
Dashboard: 56
WeatherChannel: 23
Low temperature difference:
WTHR: 21
WISH: 22 (one day missing from report)
FOX: 47
Dashboard: 43
Weather Channel: 39
Total degrees off in a five-day period:
WTHR: 46
WISH: 36 (four days)
FOX: 83
Dashboard: 56
WeatherChannel: 62
Of course, pure numbers don't mean everything. Looking at the graphs, WTHR was regularly off, but was the most even distribution of inaccuracy with WISH. Fox was clearly the most inaccurate, pretty much across the board. Dashboard was the closest most often, with only two outliers really making it seem so inaccurate (24, 11 vs. 0, 0, 1, 2, 2) And the WeaterChannel was kind of all over the place in terms of accuracy. So here is my rating:
1. Dashboard
2. WTHR/WISH
3. WeatherChannel
4. Fox59
Hopefully this was insightful, colorful, and fun.