Apple Weather App snowfall totals don’t make sense

I’m guessing the larger number is physical inches of snow while the smaller number is something like Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) which measures how much water is in snow. It’s normally like a 10:1 ratio (10 inches of snow = 1 inch of water (precipitation). But if this is the case, they need to label those much clearer.

Looks like my app’s description for January 11 has revealed the answer—the top number is “liquid equivalent precipitation.” This needs to be made clearer.

Same deal with Canadian forecast. I figured it was maybe misrepresenting the source data. Today is bad though, closer to 20:1

The best explanation I can think of is that its 7mm of precipitation vs 120mm of snowfall. That would make sense given that there could be a mix of rain and snow in the same day so the value at the top would be an aggregate of both measures and the description at the bottom could break both down in rainfall vs snowfall. With that in mind, my take away is that the precipitation value is much less interesting than the snowfall when planning my day but more difficult to get to.

Today's weather summary takes the cake. At Northstar, in Lake Tahoe, where there is a blizzard going on. The Precipitation says 2.65" in the last 24 hours with 1.2" in the next 24hrs. In actuality thre has been 33" of snowfall in the last 24 hrs with another 30" coming. Who cares about "liquid equivalent"?? That is NOT why we view the weather. We want to see rain, snow and accurate summaries. If apple feels a need to add a "liquid equivalent", then make that a footnote, not the headline.

interesting. never seen that comment about "equivalent" appear before. I have the same situation as others with the discrepancy between Total for the Daily and Daily Summary. Thanks for posting the screen shot.

It lead me to find this article about Snow Ratios from the NWS which collaborates your screen shot

https://www.weather.gov/arx/why_snowratios

Same issue. Top total says 1.1”. Daily summary says 10.9”. Unlikely to be dividing by 10, more likely accidentally picked the max hourly snowfall and used/mislabeled is as the top Total. Surprising for Apple to let slip a bug like this. iOS Weather app team please fix.

the weirdest part is if you tap and hold to see the individual hourly totals and add them all up that total doesn’t match up with either of the other 2, so there’s 3 total amounts, super confusing, if it’s a bug they need to fix it, if there is a reason for the difference they need to label it better. we’re not all meteorologists.

why do you have an apple support account (meaning you have an apple id) if you use a samsung, and furthermore, if you have a samsung, what are you doing browsing the apple support pages, please go see the sunlight

I think the number at the top is what matters for how thick snow will be. Comparing the current snowfall warning from Environment and Climate Change Canada to the weather app we see that the numbers closely match.

Glad someone else was asking this question as it really confuses me and look forward to reading the replies. Also there is a huge discrepancy between the Apple default and weather channel default app. From my experience, Apple appears to be more accurate for Sierra snowfall.

I agree. I see what kbj-22 sees. I understand what others have said about “liquid equivalency” but that doesn’t make sense to me. Even if displaying that number without explanation onscreen is a bug, it seems to complicate matters.

The top “Total” number seems to always be 1/10th that of the lower “Summary” number. It really looks like it’s a decimal point discrepancy.

I doubt it’s about liquid equivalency because I recall that was other than a 1:10 ratio.

Dear Apple Discussions Monitors (presuming someone like that exists):

Would you please weigh in?

I just noticed this as well. Definitely incorrect

I’m thinking that the decimal point is off? And then the number gets rounded up! idk. So annoying tho.

I am having the same issue.

it is showing 0.65” Total for day. And 9” total snowfall in the daily summary. The weather Channel is forecasting 3 to 6 inches for this date / location.

My weather app is doing this too.