More than 80 outdoor attractions in the UK, including Chester zoo and the Eden Project, have written to the Met Office complaining that a headline graphic of a raincloud on a weather app puts visitors off in droves. This can cost them up to £137,000 in a day. It's a staggering figure, but it's a symptom of a larger issue - our obsession with weather apps. They're so obsessed that it's affecting their daily lives.
A journalist decided to challenge herself to a week without checking her weather app to find out if it was running, or even ruining, her life. Day one started with a sunny morning, and she dashed out to yoga in a light, unlined shacket. The gamble paid off when it was warm enough to sit outside a cafe afterwards. But as soon as she reclined with her headphones on, a hefty cloud blocked the sun, and she was cold. She didn't know if the heavens were about to open, so she put her hoodie on and continued with her guided meditation.
She didn't care about the uncertainty - she just went with it.
Trevor Harley, a psychologist and author of Head in the Clouds: How the Weather Affects Our Minds and Mental Health, agrees that with all the evidence of exposure to nature boosting mental health, it's better to be outside sensing the weather directly than it is to be indoors looking at a screen. Checking the weather to a certain extent is perfectly rational - we do need to plan. However, we take it all too far - we can't seem to stop checking. We're checking it all the time, and it's becoming a problem.
Weather apps further entice us with control, says Harley. In this country, in particular, the weather is very changeable. It's likely to be warmer and sunnier in summer than it was in winter, but anything can happen. August might be record-breakingly hot or a wet, miserable write-off - we just don't know. Weather apps help us cope with the uncertainty.
There's a broader psychological point - it's an increasingly uncertain world, and we're made anxious by climate change. Looking at these apps gives us an illusion of control that perhaps is absent from the rest of our lives. It's like we're trying to control the uncontrollable.
As the journalist continued her week without the app, she started to feel a sense of liberation. She didn't know what the weather would be like, and she didn't care. She'd step outside, sniff the air, and decide what to wear based on how she felt. It was freeing, and she started to enjoy the surprises that came with not knowing the weather. She didn't miss checking the app - she was too busy enjoying the moment.
According to a survey by Harris Poll, 37% of people only check the headline weather symbol for the entire day. But often this symbol will contain rain, even if there's no chance of it falling in the precise window of a planned outing. This is because weather apps often have what's known as a wet bias in how they present the weather, to avoid disappointment. They're trying to cover their bases, but it's not always accurate. It's not always what's going to happen.
We're risk-averse, says Harley. This feels very glass half empty. Fifty-five percent of people consider changing plans if the app gives an overall 40% chance of rain - even though, says Sarah Beams, the managing director of Harris Poll, if they called it 60% chance of being dry, people might then think differently. They might not change their plans if they knew the chances of it being dry. They're letting the app dictate their decisions.
The journalist's experiment ended after a week, and she learned that not checking the weather app wasn't the end of the world. In fact, it was quite liberating. And as she packed for a trip to London, she realized that she didn't need to check the app to have a good time. The Met Office's Grahame Madge advises checking an app's radar visualisation to get an accurate view of where rain is coming from and where it's heading. It's a good way to stay informed without being controlled by the app.
More than 80 outdoor attractions in the UK have written to the Met Office complaining about the impact of weather apps. The attractions claim that misread weather apps can cost them up to £137,000 in a day. 37% of people only check the headline weather symbol for the entire day. Weather apps often have a wet bias in how they present the weather to avoid disappointment. 55% of people consider changing plans if the app gives an overall 40% chance of rain. These are the key facts - they're what we know about weather apps and their impact on our lives.