This probably looks amazingly similar to any of the weather reports you see in the paper or on your internet provider. So, maybe we all just should go to NOAA. It is free too!
But the real answer, going back to the intro of this column, is you want to be able to drill down and not every weather service gives you that ability.
Drill, Baby, Drill!
On any given day, you can get a weather report what tells you that the chance of rain is 80%. So, if you are planning to do anything outside, you might cancel or move it to another venue. But the 80% covers the whole day, i.e.., there is an 80% chance that it will rain sometime today… When?
Here is what you can find at www.weather.com, as an example:
But there are two ‘buttons’ of interest. Upper left corner it says “Details” and along the bottom it says “Hour-By-Hour.” Hmm… If we try Details, we get:
Better but what I really want to know is when the rain is likely to arrive and this still looks like all day! What happens if I drill down on hour-by-hour?
Bingo! If you look at the chances of precipitation (just above the graph of temperatures), you’ll see that the chances of rain before 2pm of about 1 in 3 or less! Even by 3pm, it is even money that no rain has fallen!
Drill, Baby, Drill – and how about we get some fishing in this morning!!!