Locally crowdsourced weather notifications to improve model accuracy

The weather is sometimes extremely localized: it might be snowing where you are, but two blocks away it might be sunny. This level of granularity is rarely captured by weather forecasts, since obtaining such high-resolution data and making forecasts at this micro scale is extremely difficult.

I’m hoping to solve this problem with pressureNET, and we’ve just shipped a new feature that I’m really excited about. We’ve improved our current conditions feature by adding a new widget to quickly submit current conditions as well as a notification if someone nearby reports a condition.

Nearby snowWeather over North AmericaNearby snow notification

You’ll get an alert about the nearby weather and will be prompted to report what’s it like outside where you are. We’ll combine this data with our live stream of atmospheric pressure data to create very high-resolution, personalized weather forecasts that are validated against reality. This will take us some time, so for now, enjoy looking at the map and watching the weather change block-by-block in your city (if enough people contribute)!

Soon we’ll add a feature to show animations of these conditions over time – it’ll be really cool to watch storms roll across cities, and this data will help validate the forecasts we build.