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Comment by saagarjha | Hacker News Reader

> In 2009, a back-of-the-envelope study estimated that U.S. adults check the weather forecast about 300 billion times per year.

That's every single adult in the United States checking the weather four times a day. A bit more than I would have expected…

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This number probably includes things like swiping to the leftmost home screen on your phone to see the weather widget at the top. When it's that easy you can often check the weather unintentionally.

That's a 2009 study, so more like every time you open your flip phone.

Actually, now that I think about it, I have a weather complication on my watch–it's probably grabbing the weather every hour or so to keep it up-to-date.

I'm not in the US, but as I like spending my weekends doing outdoor activities I check weather forecasts during the week a lot to try and plan what I'm going to do and where. Four times a day doesn't seem that much to me - I'd imagine people who work outdoors and farmers have even more reason to check the weather frequently.

[NB I even check multiple sources of weather information: BBC, Windy and MWIS].

December-April, I check a few times a day and different sources for snow/ice since I do not feel comfortable driving and getting caught in it. The number of times increases especially if I'm traveling. So when you time-average this over the year, it makes more sense.

When there's a hurricane incoming during the season, I check more often than that, at least every time the NHC has a new advisory. I imagine severe weather events cause huge surges in activity, it's probably not normally distributed throughout the year.

Floridian. During the summer months I check more often (when I'm heading out) so that I know if a T-Storm will be developing in the next couple hours.

Wait what? I grew up in Miami: the answer is always yes.

I check the Air Quality Index probably 20X per day where I am in Thailand (Chiang Mai). Guess Americans are just neurotic when it comes to the elements.

Goes back to shopping for that NASA spacesuit...clean air wherever you go.

My weather check is normally looking out the window. I don't use forecasts very often.

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