Which weather app is the best?

Users of devices that run on Google's Android operating system or Apple's iOS are often offered a weather app as standard on their tablet or smartphone. While these might appear useful they

are not always accurate because the information they contain is generated automatically.  In addition to these apps such as Buienradar and Buienalarm are also popular, as is the Royal Meteorological Institute RMI’s app. Here the forecast comes from metrologists and is not generated automatically.

The VRT’s weatherwoman Sabine Hagedoren says that she makes her weather forecasts based on information from the Royal Meteorological Institute. Our colleague recommends the RMI app to those wishing to obtain an accurate weather forecast.  "For short-term forecasts, the data is very reliable and the app is very user-friendly. You will find all kinds of data there, such as the temperature, wind direction, wind speed and precipitation levels for the next 24 hours and you can also set your location." 

Sabine Hagedoren suspects that most people mainly use weather apps to check whether it will rain that day. "An average user mainly wants to know whether he or she can, for example, still cut their grass or not. There want to know where are the showers are and when it will rain where they are. This can be see perfectly clearly on these apps.

Buienradar is a private company that is also active in Belgium. Two Belgian meteorologists check the data that users of the app or website see online. Many apps use the same weather models as are used by the weather forecasters that appear on TV. For example, both the RMI and Buienradar use the European weather model.

"But weather models do not make predictions, they only provide data," explains weatherman Michel Nulens of Buienradar explains. "The computer will make calculations based on this data ​​and then convert them into, for example, a map on which you can see if there are any showers. Our weather forecaster then checks everything before we update the information in the app." The RMI also works in a similar way, says Sabine Hagedoren. "It is indeed not the case that the RMI completely leaves the weather model to its own devices. The weather forecaster at the Ukkel Weather Centre adjusts the forecasts if necessary." 

The weather apps provided by, for example, Google and Apple work differently. Michel Nulens told VRT News that "The data from the computer models is pumped directly into these apps. This often makes them less accurate."

"The experience you have as a forecaster is extremely important. A model can be 100% certain that a storm is coming, but then as a weatherman you have act responsibly and not spread panic”.

Whether you use the RMI, Buienradar or another app forecasts are never 100% accurate all the time. Just like a weather forecaster, a computer model can also be wrong sometimes. For example, drizzle is sometimes so thin that the drops are not picked up on the radar. Then you may still feel wet, even though the app promised that it would remain dry.

"Showers can sometimes also occur at short notice. In the summer, for example, this can happen very quickly," Hagedoren explains. "The apps’ rain radars may have not yet seen the rain at that moment, so they cannot make any calculations based on it. If you have just looked at your app and no rain was forecast, then fifteen minutes later you suddenly getting wet."

"Sometimes apps also predict that a shower will pass over your location in an hour, yet it remains dry. This is because the shower has already dried up by then. These are errors that are still in the system. As a result, people sometimes find that weather apps are unreliable," the VRT’s weatherwoman says.

Sabine Hagedoren also gives an extra tip for people who regularly go abroad. "Always use the app of the Weather Centre of country you are staying in. They know the local situation best and can therefore make the most reliable forecasts."