AccuPOP Helps Bikers, More
We got a question from a user of the AccuWeather.com free site last night that went something like this:
"I am a cyclist but have found your precipitation forecasts lacking because they do not present a probability of precipitation."
In reality, we have a great tool for forecasting probability of precipitation (POP), called (incredibly) AccuPOP™. What most of our competitors do is this: Take a guess at what the rainfall might be in a day, or an hour, dotting rain amounts evenly every other "x" hours, and saying effectively: "Our forecast, of course, is correct and there is a 100% chance of 0.25 inches of rain from 12pm-1pm but a 100% chance of zero rain from 1pm-2pm. In reality, weather predictions are so inprecise that there is a "chance" of rain both hours and if you're painting your roof you'd be best off waiting.
Enter AccuPOP. To quote from the page from our Help section, it says:
AccuWeather's revolutionary AccuPOP is the first multi-period 3-hour probability of precipitation and has been created in response to The American Meteorological Society's 2002 statement endorsing probability forecasts and recommending their use be substantially increased. As a public service, AccuWeather is making available the AccuPOP for precipitation, rain, snow and ice for every location in the U.S., to cover the next 96 hours (4 days) on AccuWeather.com Premium. AccuPOP can be used as a tool in making plans for outdoor activities.
On our the free, ad-supported version of AccuWeather.com, we have 24 hours of AccuPOP. If you put in your zipcode (let's use Roanoke, VA today since they're about to get a storm) visit the "Days 1-5" forecast page, you can see the AccuPOP links next to Today and Tonight (or Tonight and Tomorrow if you're reading this in the evening), which lead to the "Details" page showing the AccuPOP graph:
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