I noticed that accuweather measures snow differently to rain. Rain is in mm but snow is in cm - that’s mildly infuriating to me.

  • bonenode@piefed.social
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    6 days ago

    Isn’t that just standard convention? Rain is always measured in mm, and snow makes no sense to measure in a unit as small as mm, therefore cm.

    May be related to that rain is measured by filling up a measuring cylinder standing around. Doesn’t really work with snow as it takes a bit before it packs nicely.

  • Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 days ago

    Accuweather is the cancer of the meteorology community. They spend a shitload of money lobbying to privatize public weather data. All my homies hate AccuWeather.

      • Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 days ago

        I’d recommend weawow, it’s what I normally use. You can choose a source for your weather data, rather than just being stuck with whatever the developer chooses. Weather underground is okay. It used to be a lot better before IBM bought them out, but the UI isn’t too terrible. Carrot is also somewhat decent from what I remember.

        If you need a rock solid radar app, radarscope is phenomenal. If you’re into viewing predictive model data, flowx is probably my most used weather app during non-tornado season.

  • mech@feddit.org
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    6 days ago

    It makes sense, though.
    It’s a different measurement for a different type of precipitation.
    And snow has about 1/10 the density of water on average, so going from mm to cm makes sense.

  • Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    This is how it always is and has been. One mm of rain is roughly equivalent to one cm of snow.

    • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
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      6 days ago

      But snow can have wildly different densities. I find it hard to believe that this is true.

  • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website
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    6 days ago

    Isn’t that because it’s different measurement techniques? Mm rain is measured in a standardized meteorological cylinder contraption. If snow is measured in one of these cylinders they do mm of meltwater if I remember correctly. The centimeters are the height of the snow cover on the ground if it doesn’t melt right away.

    • tias@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 days ago

      I’ve heard that 1 cm of snow corresponds roughly to 1 mm water when melted, so basically all they need to do is check the cylinder and replace the unit.

      • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
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        6 days ago

        Only it’s not a cylinder but more like a funnel, where snow can clog up the upper part and not even reach the cylindrical part.

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    6 days ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_(unit)

    Britain

    Main article: English units of measurement

    A digit (lat. digitus, “finger”), when used as a unit of length, is usually a sixteenth of a foot or 3/4" (1.905 cm for the international inch).[6] The width of an adult human male finger tip is indeed about 2 centimetres.

    Full standardization on decidigits it is!

    • NotJohnSmith@feddit.ukOP
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      6 days ago

      No, not often at all. Sounds like I’m mildly ignorant rather than it being mildlyinfuriating

  • WackyHeartFluid@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    They also like to downgrade whichever paid version of the app you have every couple of years and introduce a new extra-premium-plus-pro tier. Accurate predictions but scammy bullshitters selling it. Weawow can use same prediction models without rewarding bait-and-switch assholes.

    • davad@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      I don’t think they actually do any weather forecasting. Last I heard, all the US weather apps are getting forecasts from the National Weather Service (part of the NOAA). I imagine it’s similar in other countries. Which makes the bait-and-switch that much more infuriating.

  • NotJohnSmith@feddit.ukOP
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    6 days ago

    Agreed all, I think if snow was inches it would edge it beyond mildly infuriating :)

    I’d not considered protocol but did calm down quickly when you appreciate that some places can get a large volume of snow so using a larger scale is reasonable.