Caroline Haskins at The Outline:

Eric Floehr of Forecast Watch noted that weather apps are simply meeting the appetite that smartphones naturally create for immediate information. In the case of weather apps, this may not be a good thing for users.

“Forecasts used to be a couple days ahead,” Floehr said. “Now, you’re planning your outing for the weekend on Monday. And you’re [also] just looking an hour out, a minute out. So it’s changing the horizons. The horizons of forecasts are broadening.”

This demand has led to the emergence of minute-by-minute forecasts by services such as Accuweather and DarkSky. Porter said in a phone call that Accuweather has information about neighborhoods on the “block by block level” that makes these forecasts possible. DarkSky did not respond to a request for comment.

However, Spann called these minute-by-minute services a “total scam.”

In my experience, the best way to get a reliable short term precipitation forecast to look at single site radar data and extrapolate from that. I can even recommend a good app for it¹.