software situation

Windy is very similar to

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

Oddly, driver training schools don't include much on how internal combustion engines function. Most of the training is on how to operate the vehicle with maybe a few maintenance hints (put air in the tires, check the oil, keep the windows clean, etc). Some of my friends struggle with opening the door when they forget their wireless key fob at home. Judging by appearances, driving to the supermarket and back, without hitting anything, is a major accomplishment that can be achieved without knowing how the engine works.

It's the same with AI weather forecasting. Members of the GUM (great unwashed masses) do not need to know how an AI is used to produce a weather forecast. To them, the process might involve a weather rock:

Knowing how sausage and weather forecasts are made does not make either more digestible.

Incidentally, while attending college in the 1960's, I worked part time as an auto mechanic (floor sweeper) at a Ford dealer. I met quite a few drivers. I noticed that the stunt and race car drivers were terrible at maintaining their vehicles, while the mechanically inclined did well on maintenance, but were not very good drivers. I guess that also applies to electronic design. There are those that can design, but can't operate their designs and those who can do amazing things with the final product, but couldn't design anything that actually worked or could be manufactured. Similarly, computer programmers should not attempt to operate a screwdriver.

Floor sweepers for whatever reason have their own sort of electrical profile (goldcarts, forklifts, floor sweepers/polishers, ...), perhaps because they're fundamentally not stationary. So, motors and batteries and the like are defined in terms of them as applications.

Sometimes ignorance allows a false sort of confidence that translates to bravado, "invincible ignorance", "the perceived immortality of the unwary", ....

Experience brings for most people a familiarity with maintenance.

That's a good one the "sausage and weather forecasts" bit, speaking yet to usual accounts of "knowing where the food comes from" and besides "thoroughly chewing the food".

Most software is taught as "do this to get that", "click here for <whatever>". Do you really understand how a wordprocessor stores a document? How it searches it, rejiggers it to accommodate text insertions and deletions?

Do you care? (perhaps if you end up using one that has been naively designed where inserting a single character at the start of the document requires EVERYTHING that follows to be "moved down"...)

Traditional weather forecasters likely rely on an understanding of how fluids behave in a given "volume". AI forecasters will likely leave many of them scratching their heads as they look for patterns that may not be immediately explained by geography, winds, pressures, etc. Because AIs aren't limited to looking at the "current conditions".

This seems to (almost) be universally true. E.g., give a "repairman" a blank sheet of paper to start a design and the first thing he'll do is turn it over, expecting the "missing writing" to be on the back side. The same is true of most "coders", technicians, etc. The good ones can suss-out someone else's design but usually don't know where to *start* on one. And, are quickly ineffective if a change propagates "too far" into the existing design (as that would require more knowledge of its overall "structure")

Perhaps the most challenging task is preparing *user* documentation for a product/design. Being able to imagine how someone (unfamiliar with the product) will best comprehend its purpose and usage. And, how a seasoned user will think of accessing that documentation, later -- what "keywords" will he seek in an index, etc.?

The same is true of most hardware/software designs -- "where do I *start* to understand it?" (hardware often easier as it's largely visible)

I am always amazed at how many "engineers/programmers" are tasked with designing products -- instead of domain experts. You invariably end up with something that looks (and acts) like it was designed by an engineer/programmer, completely clueless as to what a "real/typical" user would expect in such a device. And, the designer puzzled by why others find it such a mismatch!

Windy does not generate their forecasts. They simply repeat, combine and reformat what they get from other sources:

Most of the forecasts rely heavily on NWS (National Weather Service). NWS produces forecasts in various formats often using different models. The result is that if you compare the NWS forecasts, they're all quite different. In the list below, try comparing the various weather.gov forecasts (for my location), and you'll probably notice major variations.

Incidentally, I subscribed to Windy.com and pay $19/year. The main benefit for me is 1 hr forecast resolution instead of the default 3 hr resolution.

Here is a list of what I use for weather forecasting. All the links are centered on my house in Ben Lomond, California. It should be fairly easy enough to relocate them to your area and tweak the shortcut.

California Weather Watch:

College of DuPage - Nexlab

NWS Radar - 30 min history

NWS 6 day history graphs

NWS 5 day local forecast

Windy.com

Zoom Earth <https://zoom.earth/maps/radar/#view=37.0905,-122.0892,8z/date=2026-03-31,14:40,-7/overlays=wind>

There's a completely different set of links for fire related info, marine weather, and aircraft weather. They change constantly. The links listed about are the one's I've been using currently.