Weather prediction requires significant investment in sensors, computers to predict and calculate and then experts who would interpret the data. However, a group of entrepreneurs have made an app that predicts the weather in the short term with very little investment.
First, what does the application do ? It predicts rain in the short term – is it going to rain in the next hour or so ? That information is most important for many people. Sometimes, when you are waiting to go home and it is raining outside, the question that you have is – will it stop raining in the next 2 hours. That is exactly what the group at Dark sky does.
How they do it? They do image processing of publicly available images of radar weather and use that to calculate how the clouds will behave at that specific location in the short time. Interestingly, this weather calculation only works in the short term and that is exactly what they have been doing for the app. The imaging algorithm first located where you are. Then it looks up the radar images in your location. From there, it figures out how the clouds are moving near you and what the precipitation has been near you.
The imaging algorithms have been the real winner in this app. Look at the groups Kickstarter link to find out more.