[HN Gopher] Eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiec...
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Eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece (2023)
Author : skadamat
Score : 334 points
Date : 2026-01-10 12:23 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nightingaledvs.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nightingaledvs.com)
| mocmoc wrote:
| Meteoswiss app is the best weather app ever created
| FredFS456 wrote:
| I haven't used Dark Sky but on my Android phone, Meteoswiss is
| definitely very very good
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| How does it compare to Dark Sky?
| hdx19 wrote:
| Try meteogram
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Bummer. It looks cool but no updates in five years. That
| doesn't bother me, except I wonder when Apple will kick it
| off the store. It also doesn't say anything about the
| privacy and data collected.
| fsh wrote:
| The app is great, but unfortunately it only works in
| Switzerland. The same company also developed a german version
| (DWD WarnWetter, works for all of Europe), and recently a
| worldwide one (Fluid Meteo).
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Dark Sky, my love <3
| pasc1878 wrote:
| Yes Dark Sky had the best UI of any weather app I have used.
|
| I now use Weathergraph which does it differently but I would go
| back to Dark Sky (and pay for it) in a flash.
|
| It shows the correct things and on a phone understands that
| showing the temperatures across the screen is useless as if I go
| out I want to know what the weather is like when I might make the
| journey back in 8+ hours time. I might not care what the weather
| is in 4 hours time as I will be inside.
| gcanyon wrote:
| Dark Sky was a marvel, and when it first came out, its ability to
| say rain will start where you are in 2-3 minutes was a marvel.
|
| The information design argument is 100% valid, but I also marvel
| that, having bought the company, Apple's weather app still isn't
| as precise or accurate. I don't know whether Apple's privacy
| focus prevents them making the same precise predictions, or if
| there is some other reason they don't, but it's sad that in 2025
| we don't have the same level of performance as we did twelve
| years ago.
| staindk wrote:
| Kind of feel like watching Spiderman tonight and I don't know
| why hehe.
|
| In all seriousness I heard some good things of dark sky. My
| current weather app is windy.com and I believe it's more built
| for surfers and such (??) - not sure what the best android
| weather app is.
| jasonmccay wrote:
| Yes! The ability to be outside, pull out your phone, and get an
| almost-to-the-minute awareness of when it was going to rain
| felt magical, right out of Back to the Future 2. I used this
| countless times.
|
| So much of weather forecasting, at that time, was about trends
| and probabilities. DarkSky was about events, certainty, and
| action.
|
| It was truly ahead of anything else and forced a new standard.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _The ability to be outside, pull out your phone, and get an
| almost-to-the-minute awareness of when it was going to rain
| felt magical_
|
| But iOS has this now. It's the same thing. They integrated it
| from Dark Sky.
| 3333333331 wrote:
| it doesn't work nearly as well. i'm not sure why, but the
| predictions are significantly worse than dark sky's were
| woodwireandfood wrote:
| I agree. One of the weird things is that the
| precipitation map will show rain coming that doesn't show
| anywhere else in the Weather app. Nearly every time that
| happens, the map is the one that's correct. And usually
| forecast.weather.gov will align with the map as well (and
| provide a better forecast than the app).
| crazygringo wrote:
| But that's the point. The map is based on the Dark Sky
| algorithm and only goes out an hour or so. And that's
| where the next-hour precipitation graph comes from -- and
| I've never seen them not match. Everything else is
| standard weather forecasts. Dark Sky itself worked the
| same way. It wasn't making 6-hour forecasts using its
| 1-hour algorithm. The results would have been terrible.
|
| This is why I don't understand the complaints that iOS
| precipitation accuracy is worse than Dark Sky's. The map
| works the same way. The chart works the same way.
| Complaints about UX I get. But not the complaints about a
| supposed fall in precipitation accuracy.
|
| I get that it's a common trope that products always
| supposedly get worse once they're bought. But in this
| case, in terms of _accuracy_ , I just don't think it's
| true. And remember, Apple would have _zero_ reason to
| worsen the quality. The whole point of buying it was to
| improve iOS weather. Which it did.
| 3333333331 wrote:
| to each their own, but i used darksky for years as a
| daily bicycle commuter and found it to be profoundly
| accurate--to the point where i could use it to find clear
| patches of 15-20min to ride home in. there was a marked
| decline in the reliability & accuracy of the information
| provided to me once i was forced to switch to apple
| weather
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Apple 's weather app still isn't as precise or accurate_
|
| Is it not? The rainfall-per-minute over the next hour on iOS
| seems about the same accuracy as Dark Sky had -- I used Dark
| Sky for years. It wasn't perfect but it worked well enough,
| same as iOS did after. You can even scrub the precipitation map
| predictions and they look the same to me.
|
| I know the Dark Sky prediction accuracy was greatly dependent
| on where you lived -- this is something that was widely
| discussed back in the day. If you've seen a drop in accuracy,
| did you simply move?
| postalcoder wrote:
| I used the Dark Sky app since it came out in 2012. I used to
| consistently get notifications about precipitation with Dark
| Sky, that were consistently accurate. The Apple weather
| application seems less motivated to send me notifications
| with any sort of regularity. I almost never get them now,
| even with fresh iOS installs. I haven't moved either.
|
| And just anecdotally, Dark Sky was a delight to use. Apple
| Maps makes it a chore to extract the same utility from their
| app.
| crazygringo wrote:
| OK, notifications aren't the same as accuracy though.
| Neither is delight. I'm _just_ talking about the supposed
| drop in accuracy that I just don 't see.
|
| (And Apple notifications are a mess generally. I constantly
| have notifications for something _yesterday_ only show up
| _today_. I 'm not sure that has anything to do with Weather
| specifically, their whole notification priority system is
| borked.)
| natebc wrote:
| I think the point was (and i'm certain my experience is)
| that with Apple Weather you just don't get the
| notifications at all (or rarely do) so it's very hard to
| get a feeling as to how accurate they are.
| postalcoder wrote:
| Yes, this is what I meant. I don't know what the
| notification thresholds are, so I use the fact that I'm
| getting a notification at all as a proxy for accuracy.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Got it. Yeah, where I am it's usually pretty obvious that
| it's probably going to rain in the next hour or two, so I
| look at the chart to see exactly when. I don't rely on
| notifications. So for me the accuracy seems the same. But
| if you're basing it on notifications then I could totally
| see why you could have a different impression.
|
| I think -- and I might be wrong, since this is from over
| a decade ago -- that when I first used Dark Sky, I ended
| up disabling notifications because it would constantly
| warn me of precipitation, but then when I checked the
| graph there was none because the model had since updated,
| and I wound up turning them off. So notification
| thresholds are probably something hard to get right, and
| what is appropriate for one geographic area might not be
| optimal for another.
| natebc wrote:
| Back then (2010-2013ish) I was driving a motorcycle
| primarily so I was hyper aware of the immediate weather
| and Dark Sky was like magic in that use case.
| nate wrote:
| Haven't moved for years, but yeah same over here. Darksky
| data seemed perfect and now no matter what source of data I
| use in places like Carrot or the ios weather app gives me the
| accuracy Darksky had. Is it just climate change? I have no
| idea, but I agree, accuracy seems lost now without Darksky
| proper.
| chrneu wrote:
| checkout forecastadvisor.com and see what's the best for
| your area.
|
| I've sort of transitioned to using Ventusky and Windy to
| checkout the big picture stuff, then I make up my own mind
| about precipitation. I live in the PNW of the US and our
| terrain is so varied that forecasting services are kind of
| meh in general. They're decent for "it might rain for a
| while today" but anything hyperlocal tends to get bad
| because of the terrain in Oregon.
| growt wrote:
| Probably depends on where you are, but here in Europe I
| always joke that you should prepare for the exact opposite of
| what apple weather tells you. A lot of times I'm literary
| standing in the rain and Apple tells me the chance for rain
| is 0%
| crazygringo wrote:
| Right, but Dark Sky had that issue too. When precipitation
| has hyperlocal variation, you're always going to have that
| problem.
|
| The Doppler radar that "live" precipitation comes from
| takes 4-6 min to complete a scan, and then obviously it
| takes a few minutes for that all to be ingested, update
| models, and push to devices.
|
| The "live" weather from Apple (and when it was Dark Sky)
| has always been a prediction from about 10 min ago. And if
| it's raining where you are but dry six blocks to the north
| (as happens all the time), it's understandable why it gets
| it wrong.
| chrneu wrote:
| Dark Sky almost always over predicted rain for my area. I
| think that was kind of their strategy. That said, I very
| much miss Dark Sky on android.
|
| Also I really like a tool called Forecast Advisor.
| https://www.forecastadvisor.com/ . It shows you the
| accuracy of various forecasting services for your area.
|
| I use it whenever I travel. I don't stick with one forecast
| site because depending on the terrain/location their
| accuracy changes drastically.
|
| Certain models are better for certain geographical features
| depending on the location. I tend to hangout around a lot
| of mountains and the difference in forecast models makes a
| huge difference.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That is basically my impression here in the US PNW. If it
| tells me rain is about to start at my location, the one
| thing I know with 100% certainty is that rain is not about
| to start any time soon.
| lisp2240 wrote:
| Dark Sky would say "Light rain staring in 4 minutes and
| ending in 17 minutes" and that's what would happen.
|
| Apple Weather is nothing like this.
| gcanyon wrote:
| I haven't done the stats, so I should probably have said
| "Apple's weather app still doesn't _seem_ as precise or
| accurate "
|
| _That_ said, I 'd still bet a dollar (that to be fair, I
| might lose) that Apple today is less accurate, and if they're
| just _as_ accurate twelve years on, that 's a fail as well.
| okrad wrote:
| Anecdotally, I agree with the parent comment.
|
| Lived in the same general area (just outside a major
| metropolitan area) where I use DarkSky and now Apple Weather
| app.
|
| DarkSky has better data vis and more reliable prediction.
| Apple Weather consistently over predicts snow fall amounts
| and many times I've had to use the Feedback to correct it on
| current conditions (e.g. raining when it says no rain or vice
| versa). I believe DarkSky had the same feedback feature but I
| never needed it this much.
|
| Most of the time AW is fine but it's less good to the point
| I've considered alternatives.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Agreed, that's what won me over to Dark Sky. Now I use Carrot
| Weather and like that a lot, the "it's going to rain hard in XX
| minutes" notifications are awesome, especially with a dog. I've
| gotten that notification close to a normal time I'd take the
| dog out and been able to run him outside before it pours rain
| for the next hour.
| Handy-Man wrote:
| Apple should have just used that app itself, rather than trying
| to build whatever that they have right now.
| treesknees wrote:
| The Apple Weather app has gotten better over time, though it's
| still not a perfect replacement.
|
| Scrolling through the Dark Sky screenshots, I can recognize many
| of the same things now incorporated with Apple's. And Apple does
| offer location specific notifications of rain which I find to be
| pretty accurate, about as accurate as Dark Sky.
|
| There's largely a perception problem with Apple. People loved
| Dark Sky as an independent small app that worked well, before
| Apple took it and destroyed it. Now, even if Apple incorporated
| all of the same data and features, it still wouldn't give that
| same spark of joy people had.
| al_borland wrote:
| I still think DarkSky made it easier to visualize the day. With
| Apple, when I tap on a day to see the details, the temperature
| and rain forecasts are in two separate graphs, instead of being
| unified into one easily glanceable view.
|
| This is what I really liked about DarkSky. I didn't have to
| read and understand the forecast, I could simply glance at it
| and intuitively have an understanding of the day's weather.
| Apple lost this, and I think it is what gave DarkSky so much
| value.
| Leftium wrote:
| I designed https://weather-sense.leftium.com to make it
| easier to visualize both the day _and week_.
|
| Even without any text labels, you should be able to get a
| feel for what the weather is and how it will change:
|
| - Hourly plots like Dark Sky, with everything (temperature,
| rain, AQI, weather conditions) in a single plot.
|
| - The change in temperature visualized with both color and
| space. Space is obvious (higher -> hotter); color ranges from
| red for hottest to blue for coldest. All the visible plots
| share the same color-temperature mapping. So the gradient
| block to the left shows both the temperature range for that
| day as well as how it compares to other days.
|
| - Finally, there is a weekly overview at the top.
| myko wrote:
| > still not a perfect replacement
|
| Not a replacement at all for Android subscribers!
| codechicago277 wrote:
| Dark Sky was one of my favorite apps. MyRadar Pro is probably
| the best replacement, but it's missing some of the core
| features.
| Den_VR wrote:
| I find Apple weather incredibly frustrating... I keep wanting
| to use it like I used dark sky, but it's just not there...
| And I still don't think it's as accurate. At least not in
| Europe. I remember with dark sky being able to know if it's
| rain, and for how long it will continue raining to the minute
| chrneu wrote:
| I really like Ventusky and Windy.com
|
| Huge bag of data for you to mess around with. I've started to
| use it to do my own weather forecasting instead of relying on
| forecasting services. Where I live has a radar gap(Oregon)
| and ridiculously varied terrain, so forecasts aren't great
| anyway.
| jamauro wrote:
| > The Apple Weather app has gotten better over time
|
| Interesting, I think it's gotten worse over time. Even basics
| like what the temperature will be in a few days. It's
| consistently ~5+ degrees off on the low side.
| kdheepak wrote:
| fwiw, on iOS, I like using WeatherGraph:
| https://weathergraph.app/
|
| The developer is very responsive, lots of UI customization (both
| app and widgets) is possible, and pricing is reasonable.
| dmd wrote:
| They used to be very responsive. "Multiple locations are on the
| way" (bottom left corner) has been like that for years now.
|
| Still the best of all the weather apps though.
| al_borland wrote:
| I just downloaded it to try it out after seeing it in a few
| comments. While some of the visualizations seem like ones I
| could get used to and like, the radar is severely lacking. I
| use radar a lot and DarkSky's view was amazing and just fun to
| play with. Weather Graph has it buried at the bottom and just
| loads up weather.gov. It's hard to justify paying a premium
| with radar feeling pretty ignored. His website mentions radar
| won't be coming in the near term. I think that's a deal breaker
| for me.
| PhotonHunter wrote:
| If you use radar a lot, have you tried RadarScope? Nothing
| else even comes close to comparing.
| chrneu wrote:
| Checkout Ventusky and Windy.com
|
| Both give you a huge amount of layers and datasets to mess
| around with. Windy recently changed their radar stuff,
| though, so it might be a bit confusing.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| If you are serious about weather radar, consider RadarScope.
| It is professional grade weather visualization of all
| products.
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| A really good Android open source alternative is Breezy Weather:
| https://github.com/breezy-weather/breezy-weather
| XzetaU8 wrote:
| Breezy Weather and Weather Master right now are IMO the two
| best open source weather apps on Android
|
| https://github.com/PranshulGG/WeatherMaster
| ayaros wrote:
| What drives me crazy is Apple redesigned their weather app not so
| long after acquiring dark sky. I was anticipating a polished,
| updated version of Dark Sky's UI. Instead we have the current
| design, which is quite frankly terrible.
| gosub100 wrote:
| So what happened with previous customers who (I'm presuming) paid
| for the app? Did their app keep running or were they given a
| refund? I am guessing it used publicly available weather data,
| but even then, if the server names changed (and support was
| ended), wouldn't the app quit working?
| Amezarak wrote:
| I paid for it and got nothing at all. I don't remember if the
| app quit working or if Apple force removed it from my phone.I
| felt absolutely scammed - it's literally the only app I've ever
| paid for.
|
| It really sucks. Do they use the same data? I've noticed Apple
| Weather is substantially less accurate than Dark Sky. If Dark
| Sky told me it was going to rain in 10 minutes for 7 minutes,
| that's what was going to happen. If Apple Weather says it,
| well, maybe.
| al_borland wrote:
| DarkSky seemed to have their own weather service (not sure
| the source data), but they had their own API that other apps
| used. Apple shut the API down after a couple years. This
| meant the death of the DarkSky website and the old apps.
|
| Apple says they use data from the weather channel, but this
| varies based on country. It used to say right in the app, but
| it seems like they removed that in favor of this link:
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/105038
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| Actually Apple says they use their own data (presumably
| Dark Sky) and used to use the Weather Channel in the US.
| chrneu wrote:
| I was an android user when it went offline. When Apple bought
| it they kind of mothballed it for a year or so, no updates but
| it still worked. Then they took the apps off the stores, but
| the API was still enabled for a lil while longer, so other
| services still functioned for the most part.
|
| Then one day it just stopped working and it all went away. But
| it took apple ~18 months or so to kill it off, if I remember
| right.
|
| But there was never any refund or whatnot.
| tunapizza wrote:
| Fortunately someone recreated a clone at https://merrysky.net,
| which was featured [1] on HN some time ago.
|
| I've used it daily since.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34155191
| kotaKat wrote:
| And a toast to its source, the drop-in PirateWeather API:
| https://pirateweather.net/
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Great rec! Thanks! See also Windy.app (a paid app w/ great
| dataviz, dx, and robust set of data sources).
| CraigRood wrote:
| Windy.app looks good visually, but once you start using it,
| the UX is all over the place. Always find it frustrating.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Interesting! I used it heavily for years as a sailor and
| found it intuitive. Clearly, YMMV. :)
| chrneu wrote:
| for what it's worth, most people i know prefer windy.com over
| windy.app
|
| Windy.app is for wind based water activities. Windy.com is a
| data-heavy weather information site.
| ako wrote:
| As a windsurfer, wingfoiler, and kitesurfer i can only say
| that both Windy.app a nd Windy.com are awesome. Like the
| ability to compare different models easily.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Thx bro. I stumbled into this thread thinking it was about
| something else, and left with a new favorite weather bookmark.
|
| Nice things: - Loads fast - Nice vis of
| both today and week - Can mouse over the visualizations
| to get precise readouts.
| Leftium wrote:
| You might also like https://weather-sense.leftium.com
| tha_hnrain wrote:
| It renders the information totally different. How can it be a
| clone?
| Leftium wrote:
| Inspired by MerrySky: https://weather-sense.leftium.com
|
| Some differences:
|
| - Shows weather from yesterday for comparison
|
| - All hourly plot trackers connected; not just the top one
|
| - Includes AQI
|
| - Sky color visualization (try scrubbing across dawn/dusk!)
|
| - Non-precipitation colors approximate sky color (haziness)
|
| - Temperature variation visualized both spatially and with
| colors
|
| - Data source is Open Meteo
|
| - Planned: 60 minutely forecast like https://openweathermap.org
| TuringTest wrote:
| There's no obvious way to change the location of the
| prediction. Can it be done, to support the "travelling soon"
| use cases?
| Leftium wrote:
| Yes, but currently only possible via url param:
|
| - https://weather-sense.leftium.com/?n=nyc
|
| n is short for "name" and uses the Open Meteo geocoding
| API[1].
|
| [1]: https://open-meteo.com/en/docs/geocoding-api
| guillohm wrote:
| Thanks for the mention! I'm the author of merrysky. Opened to
| feedback. What would you say you miss the most?
| owenthejumper wrote:
| I still miss Dark Sky, and years later find myself instinctively
| typing "darksky" into my phone to check weather. Nothing is
| coming closer...
| metalliqaz wrote:
| Oh the irony.
|
| A website dedicated to data visualization and it's totally broken
| on Desktop Firefox. If they had just created a straightforward
| article, it would be perfectly legible, but all the flashy-flash
| just makes it unintelligible.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| I just always use the excellent 10-day forecast tab on
| wunderground
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Note: Not related to the light-pollution organization
| https://darksky.org/
| lynndotpy wrote:
| Among all the destruction Apple has wrought when they killed
| DarkSky, they also failed to bring back the weather history
| feature. You could go back decades and see the weather anytime,
| anywhere. I miss it so.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| The Apple Weather app absolutely sucks.
|
| I have learned to ignore its predictions. It will say that it's
| sunny outside, and I'll look out the window, and we're having a
| hailstorm.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Can anyone recommend a good app to replace it? No ads,
| lightweight etc.
| macintux wrote:
| I've been happy with Carrot.
| Leftium wrote:
| https://weather-sense.leftium.com: just a web app, but you
| can add it to your home screen to access like an app[1]
|
| [1]: https://polarhabits.com/mobile
| Leftium wrote:
| https://weather-sense.leftium.com shows the past two days of
| weather, could be configured to show up to 90.
|
| - The data is from https://open-meteo.com
|
| - It would be trivial to connect the historical weather API
| (back to 1940):
| https://openmeteo.substack.com/p/processing-90-tb-historical...
| bookofjoe wrote:
| See also:
|
| Polaroid
|
| Pebble
|
| Palm
|
| Oldsmobile
|
| Tower Records
|
| Borders
|
| Pan Am
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Pebble's back, I thought.
| al_borland wrote:
| Correct
|
| https://repebble.com/
| bookofjoe wrote:
| same same but different -- and better
| chrisweekly wrote:
| I miss Dark Sky for its impressive "local weather at a glance"
| accuracy and UX -- but Windy.app is pretty great too, with more
| details than DS ever had. They're maybe slightly complementary,
| given Windy.app is more like "prosumer" weather forecasting for
| nautical purposes, but I highly recommend it.
| asymmetric wrote:
| From my quick research, it seems like people in the sailing
| community actually prefer Windy.com to Windy.app. (yes, there's
| a very confusing name clash)
| chrisweekly wrote:
| I'm the OP, a sailor, and I was referring to the native iOS
| app.
| chrneu wrote:
| Ventusky and Windy.com are my go to nowadays. They give me a
| ton of information which enables me to make my own decisions
| about weather. The ability to change forecasting models really
| quickly is nice, too. The ventusky android app is pretty
| decent, too.
| Noaidi wrote:
| Oh how I miss DarkSky, and accuracy in weather apps in general. I
| have no idea if it is AI or just enshitification, but wow, local
| temps are just always way off with Apple Weather and most other
| apps. This is important to me because I live in my van and I am
| talking about these apps being off 5 to 10 degrees. The only one
| that comes close is Accuweather but their interface is horrific.
| And forget about the widgets...just show me the highs and lows
| for the week and quit changing the layout like you think i know
| what I want, because you do not.
| chrneu wrote:
| Checkout forecast advisor. It ranks forecasting services for a
| location and gives you a summary forecast based on all the
| different services for that location.
|
| Whenever I travel I find it pretty helpful. Certain services
| are just garbage in some areas.
|
| For example, Foreca is like 84% accurate for my home location,
| but it's only 60% accurate for one of the cabins I frequent.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| Unfortunately doesn't include Apple Weather or AccuWeather so
| not as useful to me, but top at my location is only 81%.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| If you are on iPhone and can afford it, Carrot Weather can show
| you Accuweather with Dark Sky's interface.
| webdoodle wrote:
| I knew so many people that used Dark Sky before Apple bought
| it...
| hmartin wrote:
| I miss it too, so I created a web based weather app directly
| inspired by Dark Sky: https://github.com/hbmartin/open-sun
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Clicking History, Forecast, and Notifications at the bottom
| doesn't seem to do anything.
| dangoodmanUT wrote:
| yeah, nothing hits like dark sky hit
| xtiansimon wrote:
| I enjoyed this write-up on UI design and Visualization topic.
|
| The table of user "context and situation" is a great document.
| You can easily envision authoring this table and scrolling to the
| right of your initial columns (A,B) to see further into the
| design process,
|
| A) "When I hear about a storm, I want to prepare my loved ones,
| my property, etc.
|
| B) Storm forecast ... : - Where is the storm right now and is it
| heading my direction?
|
| [...]
|
| N) _Show the storm front using _directional arrows_ ... (compact
| and replaces need for animation)_
|
| The last section concludes in praise of the design and includes
| this: _"rigorously iterated on data visualization design". I wish
| we would have seen evidence of this, principally in the form of
| older screen shots of the design.
|
| I think design iteration is the difference between mere good
| design and good products, and legendary product design.
|
| Personally, I'd love to see a write up of my favorite whipping
| post, Transit App. Oh boy did that app go down hill, and with
| such great potential.
| quotemstr wrote:
| I thought we lived in the age of infinite AI software and you
| could just ask for a Dark Sky clone.
|
| Weather APIs are pretty open. What's stopping you?
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Stop trying to hold VCs to account as they try to buy all the
| ram in the world with infinite pretend money and their infinite
| pretend profits to put in their infinite pretend GPUs and their
| infinite pretend capacity, supported by the infinite pretend
| infrastructure that will never exist that we will also be
| forced to pay for.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Why did you think AI has the capability of creating an app with
| a ton of care and unique touch put into it as opposed to some
| hello world/proof of concept skeleton app?
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| Carrot does this, but Dark Sky was more than just a repeat of
| weather data from other sources. They built their own
| geographic models with feedback to create their hyperlocal
| forecasts. Apple has that technology but their implementation
| hasn't seemed to be as good (possibly because their feedback
| loop is slow).
| rrosen326 wrote:
| For weather data and amazing visualizations see
| https://weatherspark.com/
|
| Check out their compare feature. Brilliant.
|
| Eg: Seattle vs London
| https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/913~45062/Comparison-of-t...
|
| (Not affiliated. Just an admirer.)
| loire280 wrote:
| I still mourn the loss of Weatherspark's old Flash interface,
| which brilliantly displayed all of this data in a single pane
| to give context to the recent, current, and forecasted weather.
| I've never seen as concise a visualization of current and
| historical weather data.
| djoldman wrote:
| Can someone explain why the main screen in iOS weather, below the
| current temperature, shows the high temperature to the left of
| the low temperature?
|
| In all other places in the app, the low is to the left of high.
| wpm wrote:
| Because most of Apple's designers do not have the discipline or
| the blessedly smaller scope to consistently output well
| designed interfaces anymore, and are riding the momentum of
| those that came before and the current of hot air of their own
| supply these days.
|
| The idea that Apple is full of good designers should be
| forgotten. They're as mid and sloppy as any other large tech
| company.
| pasc1878 wrote:
| Although having lost their cheif desihner recently there is a
| chnace thet they might improve and go back to the standards
| of 10 years ago.
| parpfish wrote:
| Even worse: why do they use high/low based on calendar date
| rather than daily high and overnight low.
|
| During a cold snap one cold night will show up as the low for
| two consecutive days instead of a single "overnight"
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| In Carrot and Apple Weather, I think the daily temperature
| graphs should be chronological so for those days where the
| low is late at night (temperature drops all day) you know
| when the cold is happening at a glance.
| hopelite wrote:
| It wasn't as much focused on high level information visualization
| as Dark Sky, but I also still miss the original Wunderground and
| its precipitation prediction cones and radar features that were
| accurate down to the second back before it was acquired by the
| weather channel, where it went to die of neglect.
|
| This topic raises an issue I've had in mind for a while,
| companies are not realizing their true value when they sell out
| to some exit, as is evident by the fact that the companies Andy
| what they created end up being taken out behind the shed. If a
| competitor is willing to pay a certain amount without extreme
| pain to the point of convulsion or you don't get air tight
| contract that prevents killing off the service/product without it
| remitting back to the founders or being made open source, you are
| being low-balled.
|
| Taking the Wunderground example, those folks would have ended up
| owning the weather channel and probably buying or merging with
| Dark Sky and being the data provider to Apple instead of the
| Weather Channel characters (in case you don't know about that
| entity) owning and killing off their baby.
| ceroxylon wrote:
| I still use Wunderground since it utilizes base stations within
| my own neighborhood, so the data is accurate down to the street
| level. Its precipitation percentages have also been much more
| accurate than Apple weather over the last few years (for me).
| chrneu wrote:
| this is a lil off topic, but fuck the weather channel.
|
| they've been lobbying for like a decade to get NOAA defunded.
| They're basically the Intuit/turbotax of the meteorology world.
| sega_sai wrote:
| People are guaranteed to be opinionated about weather apps. I
| personally use Meteogram (on android). There you see graphs of
| every weather related quantity you want on a single widget. That
| in combination with ventusky gives me everything I need.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Apple has never been interested in his ability. It's all about
| having a certain aesthetic that is uniquely apple. That's about
| it.
| piersj225 wrote:
| After darksky was shutdown I ended up using, https://www.yr.no/en
| . I've not seen it recommended here before and thought someone
| might enjoy it
| shagie wrote:
| They've also got a developer interface -
| https://developer.yr.no
|
| One of the things that I've seen with them that I haven't seen
| with others is the cloud cover by layer.
|
| https://www.yr.no/en/details/graph/2-6301678/United%20States...
|
| https://www.yr.no/en/details/table/2-6301678/United%20States...
|
| For doing photography (sunsets) there's a significant
| difference between 50% high clouds and 50% low clouds.
| pontussw wrote:
| That L/M/H cloud breakdown is always beneficial, "Clear
| Outside" also has a similar feature in the forecast
| https://clearoutside.com/forecast/50.7/-3.52
| tcumulus wrote:
| I know that this is shameless self-promotion, but maybe this
| could interest you: https://sunsethue.com/ :)
| pontussw wrote:
| Nice to see how much you've developed Sunsethue over the
| last two years! I remember I built myself some custom alert
| logic back with your API even before the public launch :)
|
| A year and a half or something later.. I recently started a
| project of my own trying to bring all "weather dependent"
| photo opportunities together in one place, if you wouldn't
| mind I would be happy to experiment with bringing Sunsethue
| data to https://photoweather.app - your prediction model is
| certainly a lot more sophisticated than mine and it would
| be very cool to offer that
| tcumulus wrote:
| For the ones who might be interested, Yr.no uses the ECMWF
| (European weather model) as their main data source. This model
| scores the best on benchmarks of the global weather models
| (available for the whole world), but AI models are catching up
| on some parameters. Still, there are local weather models
| available with a much higher resolution (these are regional and
| only have forecasts up to a couple days). Examples are ICON-D2,
| Arome, Harmonie for parts of Europe, and HRRR for the US. I'm
| not sure which apps use these models though.
| ojojwapofije wrote:
| Do they provide a Celsius/Fahrenheit toggle? I can't find it.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| To those who are interested in viewing the "shape" of weather
| data (and who are using an apple device), I cannot recommend
| https://www.weatherstrip.app enough. I think its visualization is
| even superior to Dark Sky's, mostly by virtue of being more
| compact without losing anything.
| rswerve wrote:
| Yes, this is my main weather app and I think I've recommended
| it here before. There's another app that's slightly less
| elegant, but has more knobs to turn in Weathergraph.
| https://weathergraph.app/
| pasc1878 wrote:
| Also see weathergraph that does similar graph and shows the
| temps etc in a downwards colum,n as well
| password4321 wrote:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cloud3squa...
| offers Android users the chance to customize a home screen
| widget with similar info.
| johns wrote:
| I liked that idea but found it a little busy so I started
| working on the weather layout I always wish I had. Heavily
| inspired by Weather Line, Dark Sky, NOAA line view but
| attempting to make it single screen:
| https://www.threads.com/@johnsheehan/post/DTHnd_HDbRM
| simonmales wrote:
| I was a big fan, the original version was called forecast.io.
|
| It was a rare example at the time when it was _the_ webapp better
| than any existing 'native' apps.
| simonmales wrote:
| As a fan of webapps, https://yr.no is a good no-frills weather
| webapp.
| fnord77 wrote:
| Clearly the author didn't "obsess over how people would actually
| use" the gallery function on his web page
|
| Look at image. Scroll down to find the next image button. Scroll
| back up to look at image. On desktop
| reffaelwallen wrote:
| I am surprised no one mentioned Carrot as a replacement! I have
| been using it for years. they don't have their own source of
| data, they are mostly a good UI, and you need to select a data
| source like Apple Weather or others.
| rabeener wrote:
| +1 to Carrot. I'm a huge fan. The annual subscription is pricey
| but I travel a lot and it's consistently one of the most
| accurate apps I've used and I tried a bunch! They even have an
| "I miss Dark Sky" setting that makes the UI a clone of Dark Sky
| withzombies wrote:
| They also added the "Inline" theme which is a copy of Dark
| Sky's
| drkrab wrote:
| I'm surprised how many places in the world measure rain in
| percentage chance. Must be a metropolitan concept. Here in
| Denmark, weather reports estimate mm/hr - the amount of rain.
| Maybe it's our agricultural inheritance?
| gdulli wrote:
| If you're deciding whether to dress and prepare for rain you're
| more curious about whether it will rain or not than the amount.
| chrneu wrote:
| Most places I look at report both probability and give a
| measurement prediction.
|
| So it would be like "60% chance of rain after 2pm, total amount
| less than 1/10th of an inch"
| tonfa wrote:
| Meteoswiss has timeserie histogram with of amount of rain
| with confidence intervals (10th and 90th quantile)
|
| It tells you all you need to know at a glance :)
|
| e.g. see https://www.meteoswiss.admin.ch/images/1904/website/
| weather/...
|
| (from https://www.meteoswiss.admin.ch/weather/weather-and-
| climate-...)
| antirez wrote:
| The two things are not strictly related, you could have 30%
| chance of heavy rain, or 90% chance of light rain. Both are
| needed and many apps have both.
| blackguardx wrote:
| mm/hr is more useful for areas that get lots of rain. When I
| was living in Seattle, chance of rain was meaningless but mm/hr
| made the difference between being able to do an outside
| activity or not. In California, chance of rain makes sense
| because it rains very little.
| Leftium wrote:
| https://weather-sense.leftium.com shows both mm/hr and
| percentage chance.
|
| I've noticed there is a correlation, but having both is useful:
|
| - Often there is a percentage chance, but the mm/hr is 0. At
| these times, it could rain but will probably be very light.
|
| - Less common, but sometimes there is 0% chance, but a non-zero
| mm/hr.
| hexbin010 wrote:
| Chill a bit with the spamming ;) (7 times in this one post
| currently)
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| Rain radar is something I'm always looking at online, it's easy
| to fast forward from an hour back and see whats about to hit you.
|
| I think that would make a great single purpose mobile app -
| automatically knows where the sources of information are and
| shows you the rain - where it was, and where it is going.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Previous discussions (and submissions by OP):
|
| 2024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41109799
|
| 2023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35263115
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece
| (2023)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41109799 - July
| 2024 (196 comments)
|
| _A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35263115 - March 2023 (251
| comments)
| a-dub wrote:
| it always felt to me like the major innovation behind darksky was
| the clever exploitation of newly broadly available precision gps.
| prior to darksky, i'd look at the radar picture on my smartphone
| and the pin where i was to try and figure out when it would start
| raining, darksky seemed to just package this really nicely with
| visualizations and notifications.
|
| (and yes, the visualizations were beautiful, but the real key was
| being able to see exactly where one was with respect to the radar
| picture and to be able to use already existing forward
| predictions of the radar picture in conjunction with precise gps
| to generate timeseries/events.)
| daemonologist wrote:
| It's amazing to me that nobody has been able to match their UX
| (Apple in particular - how did they fumble the acquisition so
| badly?). The Weather Channel by most accounts has the best model
| but one of the worst websites of all time. live.xweather.com
| (formerly Aeris) is kind of close, but is basically an ad for
| their API/commercial subscriptions and not really built for day-
| to-day use. Some of the open source clones have the UI 80% of the
| way there but their forecasts aren't as accurate.
|
| I've settled on using the built-in Android weather app, but it
| pales in comparison to Dark Sky, in every respect.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| Carrot is a pay app but it has a vertical view that matches
| Dark Sky in everything but Map, and I use it all the time,
| mostly with Apple Weather as the source (no source is as good
| as Dark Sky was (and I compared Dark Sky and Apple Weather when
| both were overlapping), the others have not been as good at my
| location).
|
| I don't know if Carrot can use Apple Weather as a source on
| Android. Also it seems like the Android version is not in
| active development.
| whyenot wrote:
| One of the things that made Dark Sky so great was its simplicity
| and focus. Apple Weather has added many of DS's features over the
| past few years, but it's so much more busy and dense with
| information. This is a problem that Carrot Weather and many of
| the other apps mentioned in the comments here also have. There
| was something very special about that app, and I really do miss
| it (also Apollo, Google Reader, Gaia GPS, and all the other apps
| that were canceled or turned into bloated monstrosities before
| their time).
| Leftium wrote:
| On https://weather-sense.leftium.com the colored boxes in the
| legend at the top are actually checkboxes.
|
| Toggle only the stats you're interested in! The toggle is
| persisted to localStorage.
|
| I plan to add more stats, like wind speed and direction, but
| they will all be toggle-able.
| tomaskafka wrote:
| For anyone mourning Dark Sky, I make Weathergraph - visual
| weather app, which has the Dark Sky-like vertical view as an
| optional data layout.
|
| It's shown in the middle screenshot at https://weathergraph.app
| (on desktop, mobile users can check https://impresskit.net/image-
| download/9161183f-e118-4c75-8f8... )
| Leftium wrote:
| > It removes a sense of artificial precision that doesn't really
| exist because weather forecasts fundamentally have very high
| uncertainty and error bands.
|
| So true.
|
| Open Meteo supports 28 different WMO weather condition codes[1].
| Most weather apps only support half as many. (Just "rain" instead
| of light/moderate/heavy rain.)
|
| Showing all 28 is less helpful because of the noise. More useful
| just to show it might rain for a period of several hours vs
| oscillating between light rain and heavy rain. The light vs heavy
| precision wasn't worth it when there was high uncertainty whether
| it would even rain at all.
|
| So https://weather-sense.leftium.com consolidates hours with
| similar weather conditions into a single segment by default. You
| can click on the weather icons at the left of the plots to toggle
| the original unconsolidated view.
|
| [1]: https://weather-sense.leftium.com/wmo-codes
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