Holly Guacamole, it’s going to be a warm one tomorrow, 74 degrees, AHS student number one said. Zonkers, my weather says it’s only going to be 68! AHS student number 2 replied. I wonder whose weather is right?! Well, expert data analyst Ocean Walker found that for you!
Finding the best weather source is not as straightforward as it may seem. There are many different factors that go into what predicts the weather, including wind, cloud cover, precipitation, and temperature. The data was gathered from the weather at the Arcata-Eureka Airport, because the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) gathers highly accurate data there. The weather apps tested were Google Weather, Apple Weather, Accuweather, and The Weather Channel. Another source, Weather Underground, was not featured as it had the same data as The Weather Channel.
The temperature data was collected by checking the daily predicted high, compared to the actual high for that day. The rain data gathered as a mix of percent chance, and estimated rainfall was then compared to the rainfall throughout the day. Wind data collected by the high end of the estimated wind was compared to the highest wind recorded throughout the day, excluding gusts. Finally, the weather type was compared to NOAA’s weather type and judged based on how far away the prediction was. The forecasts were amassed from each weather source for the rest of the week, each day, then compared against the NOAA data from that day. This allowed for the forecast changes throughout the week to be incorporated into the data. 
Overall, if you were to use one source, use Apple Weather. They were consistently the second best across the board, so you can’t really go wrong if you follow those predictions. If you want to go above and beyond and get the most accurate weather, you should use a mix of sources. A mix of Accuweather, while checking Google Weather for wind data, would be the most accurate, according to my studies
