Apple’s weather app said Sacramento would reach 119 degrees next week. How accurate is it?
Ahead of a coming heat wave that will continue through the Fourth of July, Sacramento residents woke up on Thursday morning to see Apple’s weather app predicting a highs well over 100 degrees in the next week.
The most surprising forecast, however, was an estimated high of 119 degrees on Saturday, July 6.
“It almost certainly will not be 119 degrees in Sacramento next week, although it does look like it’s going to be very hot, and there may be some record-breaking heat,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
Swain said weather apps, including Apple’s, are “frustratingly unsophisticated” given modern advancements in weather forecasting, and that they do not accurately convey best estimates of future weather.
A spokesman for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
By early Thursday afternoon, the Apple forecast for July 6 had fallen to 106 degrees.
“Essentially, what they’re using is just one piece, one element, one of many models that exist to predict the weather, and they’re doing so in a way that doesn’t account for known biases and errors,” Swain said.
According to Swain, the National Weather Service is a better source of weather forecast information for the public, since it provides “the net result of the same weather models that go into these weather apps, but then adjusted by human knowledge, intuition, experience, local context.”
Although it does not yet have estimates for July 6, the National Weather Service predicted slightly lower highs than Apple for the upcoming week. The weather service only forecasts seven days ahead, predicting that Sacramento will see highs of 104 degrees on Monday, 105 degrees on Tuesday and 105 degrees on Wednesday. By comparison, the Apple weather app lists the highs as 106 degrees next Monday, 109 degrees on Tuesday, and 110 degrees on Wednesday.
“Looking at the data we have, it looks like we could still be at the triple digits,” said Idamis Del Valle-Shoemaker, a meterologist for the National Weather Service’s Sacramento weather forecast office, regarding July 6.
“However, we’re not forecasting 120.”
A 119-degree day would be the hottest in Sacramento history. According to the weather service, that mark was broken Sept. 6, 2022, when downtown reached 116 degrees.
Overall, Swain said he would not recommend people to use weather apps for forecasts. Instead, he said, the simplest thing to do is to check the NWS website, whose forecast he said does not vary as widely from moment to moment.
The upcoming heat wave in Sacramento will coincide with the Fourth of July holiday, which has often led to fire incidents in the past due to firework activity. The severe heat wave, along with new grass from the wet winter, will likely worsen the impact of fireworks.
Residents should be careful setting off fireworks near grasses, properly extinguish used fireworks and matches, ensure that campfires are completely out before leaving them, and obey any burn bans, according to Del Valle-Shoemaker.
