Weather app: GPS-local temp different from the same user-configured city

Question

Level 1

31 points

Weather app: GPS-local temp different from the same user-configured city

I have one city configured in the weather app, which also offers GPS-location weather.

When the GPS-location city is the same as the configured city, their temperatures never seem to match and can widely diverge. It's been like this since at least iOS 8.0 (and numerous power-cycling).

EXAMPLE screen shots taken seconds apart...

GPS-local temperature:

CONFIGURED CITY (same as GPS city) temp:

That's a six degree Fahrenheit simultaneous difference. It's really annoying.

Perhaps one or both of the following explains the difference:

(1) Maybe the weather app uses different temp databases for GPS-local weather and user-selected cities (maybe different temp locations within the same city)

If #1 is true: Apple, either use the same database for GPS and configured cities or describe/show the different database already used by the GPS and user-configured cities (e.g., airport, mid-city, uplands).

or

(2) Maybe the weather app accesses the same weather data for GPS-location and user-configured cities but refreshes data less frequently for one (the configured city seems to lag reality most). I've flipped between the two weather screens late at night to see if one displayed old data from the other and never observed this, though with only about 60% confidence.

If #2 is true: Apple, stop that; use the most recent data from the same temp database.

iPhone 5, iOS 8.3

Posted on Jun 26, 2015 5:17 PM

Reply

Answer 1

FoxFifth

Level 10

472,203 points

Jun 26, 2015 7:10 PM in response to generatech

Sorry -- I focused on the underlined "different temp databases"

It's not a different database. It is a different location -- one general (because that's the best it can do with a city name and one adjusted to a very specific GPS location. I don't know for a fact but strongly suspect that the one for GPS location (in all of the websites and apps) makes use of mathematical models to adjust actual reports from a few reporting locations in an area to estimate the weather at a specific GPS location.

If you want more information displayed, you can make a suggestion to Apple at https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html as this is a user-to-user support forum here.

Reply

Answer 2

FoxFifth

Level 10

472,203 points

Jun 26, 2015 6:27 PM in response to generatech

Or maybe #3: the GPS-location is giving you the temperature for that location while the city is giving the temperature from a central location such as the airport. I just used my laptop to go to the NOAA site, entered Oakland and was given a current temperature of 59º but then used the "Click Map for Forecast" on the same page and had no trouble finding a location within Oakland where the current temperature was 74º

Reply

Answer 3

generatech Author

Level 1

31 points

Jun 26, 2015 7:45 PM in response to FoxFifth

It'd be great if Apple actually had access (via its weather info vendor) to temp readings throughout a city. It's possible but since weather websites in general don't do that much I doubt apple does it.

If Apple does provide different temp readings based on GPS within a city, Apple should include a deeper description of temp locations, e.g,. airport, mid-town, uptown. Without doing so, the city temp versus GPS temp contradictions make the app look silly.

Another case in point: while working on the border of two cities yesterday, the GPS temp showed 72 F degrees while both of two weather-app user-configured cities straddling the border showed 82 F and 72 F. So I sat there one block from the border and saw three different temperatures theoretically for the same location (Oakland user-configured 72 F, GPS-local Oakland mid 60s F, and the user-configured border city temp of 82F, where I was). It felt like the low 80s F to me, and when I left and drove 2 blocks back into Oakland it still felt like 82F though the weather app stated otherwise.

The jump from just airport temperatures to more refined location reporting of temps can be lame unless the currently displayed temp location is displayed, which explains the seeming contradictions. The inconsistencies make the weather app less useful and more like a flaky toy with amusing assertions about reality.

Reply

Answer 4

generatech Author

Level 1

31 points

Jun 26, 2015 6:58 PM in response to FoxFifth

That's what I meant in my #1: "... (maybe different temp locations within the same city)"

Reply