Why are weather apps so deceitful?

Happens too often. 1Weather in this case.

The screen icon shows rain.
Open the app and among the normal stuff is a rain/time graphic. Says rain started an hour ago and will end in a half hour.

Now let's go outside together.
NOT A DAMN CLOUD IN THE SKY!
And the apps radar shows the same.

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swirlie · 31-35, F

The weather apps are generic and are defaulted to a very conservative percentile of expected rainfall for a rain icon to be generated at all.

For example, if there's a 40% chance of rain, which only means the sky will be overcast with no imbedded thunderstorms, the icon will default to rain as if it were steady rain.

Even if there's a 90% chance of rain, the icon will still default to that same rain icon that's used at 40%, rather than offer levels of chance of precipitation.

The reason for this is that the weather app you're using is being generated by a 3rd Party, rather than the national weather bureau itself. If you want actual hard data for your specific area, go to ACCUWEATHER.com

SW-User

@swirlie
What you say is categorically correct. Thanks for that one!