Dark Sky
Thomas Lynn Skean
"Dark Sky", an iPhone app, is a weather app that predicts precisely what will happen precisely where you are over the short term future.
For those of us who camp or do general errands by bike it can help make better decisions to keep dry (or even safe) without wasting too much time or energy or comfort.
For example, Dark Sky might say it will rain in 30 minutes; if you can get home in 10 minutes then you can do it dry; don't bother with waterproofing every little item in your luggage. It might say the current rain will stop in 5 minutes; why leave now when waiting 5 minutes means you don't need to don the cape and splats? It might indicate the rain will start in 10 minutes, be heavy for 15 minutes, then lighter for 30 minutes. If so, perhaps waiting it out is not viable; get out the Grundens and go forth!
Of course, it's predicting the future so it isn't perfect. But it's predicting the very short term future for a precise location given very recent patterns of data. So it's pretty darn good; good enough to be useful to me several times in the past several weeks. It has led me array once (I launched thinking I'd be dry but had to stop and put on rainwear unexpectedly) but has been usefully accurate at least half-a-dozen times. One caveat: cycling (more so than walking) will let you move quickly enough that if you travel 15-30 minutes then Dark Sky's prediction may no longer apply to you; you're too far away from where you were originally. But it does also include radar images to support its predictions so that you can extrapolate how it will affect you as you travel. And of course you can also simply consult it periodically.
It isn't free. $5? $6? Can't remember. But it is an example of something that I feel I've already gotten my money's worth from.
I'm not affiliated in any way with this app's creators/producers/distributors/what-have-you. I'm posting this here not for their benefit but for yours, gentle reader.
I realize that the "strict constructionist" view may hold that this post is off-topic... RBW had nothing to do with this app's existence! Never mind my flagrant product placement mentions of splats and Grundens or that all of my bike-shopping/camping is done on a Hillborne or that any luggage I've mentioned would be Sackville or Baggins or Nigel Smythe of various generations. I acknowledge that here, against my normal inclination and practice, I've gone with a more liberal interpretation of the group's constitution: what could be more Riv-ish than a clever gizmo or idea that is useful to the unracer cyclist? If RBW had a place on their site with links to iPhone apps, might they not link this one? (Well, maybe that's beyond the pale; iPhones, like Team USA's Olympic uniforms, are made in China.)
In any case, please accept my apology and expect me to return to my more conservative ways in future. This does not signal a new phase of my rule-interpreting life. Think of this post as my "Roberts-ObamaCare moment".
FYI,
Thomas Lynn Skean
PATRICK MOORE
very annoying to start out against a headwind and have the wind
gradually follow you around so that, on your return, it is still a
headwind. Our winds often start out from the N and turn around to the
S; on other days, from say ESE moving to W. Builds character, I
know...
Our "monsoon" rains generally come at about the same time every
evening, so the rain forecasting is not so important here.
One other app that I think is relevant on this list (since it allows
you to keep your Rivs' bars pure of any computer clutter) is
Cyclemeter, which is free and plots your route via GPS as well as
giving you all sorts of non-Rivendellian and useless data such as
calories, cadence, lap times as well as the more useful speed,
distance, time and elevation change.
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--
"Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you."
Flannery O'Connor
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Patrick Moore, Albuquerque, NM, USA
For professional resumes, contact Patrick Moore, ACRW
http://resumespecialties.com/index.html
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