Weather apps are crushing America's small businesses

businessinsider.com

4 points·ripe··5 comments

I don't see how it's any less communicative than what was printed on the front page of a newspaper a decade or two ago. There'd usually be a high temperature, low temperature, and icon showing how sunny it would be, possibly with a percentage chance of clouds or precipitation. You could look up more elsewhere in the newspaper, but that was much more work than it takes on a phone.

Understanding what the forecast means has been a problem as long as they've been around. For example does a 10% chance of rain mean that there's a 10% chance it will rain at all that day, or a 10% chance it will be raining at any given time? What about when it's an hourly forecast or a map showing 10% for part of the day or part of the region?

You're right that people have never devoted much time to digging into the details.

But also, I think the weather apps on phones today are a lot more likely to be used than the weather page in a newspaper used to be. So it's a new phenomenon.

It means 10% of a region will receive rain that day.

People who don't know how to read weather forecasts are crushing America's small businesses -- along with everything else that they come into contact with.

The cloud icon of doom, by Emily Stewart

From the article:

"When a little rain icon pops up on the ubiquitous weather apps on any given day, it can cut business in half, she says, whether any rain falls or not."

...

"when he first started bartending by the beach in 2011, families would still show up on a rainy day and make the best of it. Now, Mom wakes up, sees the rain cloud on her phone, and nixes the trip, even if the rain is only predicted for half an hour late at night."

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