The Dark Sky app promises:

hyperlocal, down-to-the-minute forecasts that let you know exactly when the rain will start or stop, right where you’re standing. (It’s like magic. )

I’ve been using this app for years on my iPhone, and it’s one of the few apps I keep on my Apple Watch too. It generally is pretty accurate.

It’s become especially very relevant for me lately, as I typically set up my work space outside. Creating my outdoor work space involves plugging in an extension cord to a surge protector and arranging my devices, plus propping the outdoor chair with yoga blocks and rolled towels.

Moving in the middle of a working session is a huge energy drain.

Once I’m set up, I want to stay that way for the duration of a work session, typically 90-120 minutes.

So, Dark Sky.

Trying to Game the Weather

Last week, about an hour before my 11 am virtual co-working session was to start, the sky looked cloudy. Dark Sky on my watch told me that rain was coming within the hour.

The phone app told me at 10:17 am that rain would be starting in 13 minutes.

At 10:32 am, with no rain in sight, I checked again. The app told me that light rain would be starting in 20 minutes.

Just to be safe, I set up my workspace inside. I didn’t want to waste energy on playing weathergirl.

By 12 pm, there was no rain in sight. With my eye on my afternoon work sessions, I checked the app again. This time the app predicted no precipitation at all.

Here are some screenshots from my phone that day:

Weather Forecasts Are Unreliable

Chances are you already know this:

Weather forecasts are often unreliable.

Not just the forecasts. Even the in-the-moment-casts. (Would that simply be “casts”?)

Meteorologists have sophisticated tools to help them predict the weather. They can track through sonars and radars, they can measure wind speeds. And they still get it wrong. Often.

Things change. The wind shifts on a dime.

There are a lot of factors involved, and any one of them can alter the course of a storm.

Nobody knows what’s going to happen.

Of course, the weather isn’t the only thing we try to predict.

In every area of life, we try to get the edge by seeking predictions of what the environment will be or what will happen.

The stock market. The real estate market. Election outcomes. How long the coronavirus pandemic will continue. The next hot social media platform. Whether your ad campaign will be successful.

Compared to the things we try to predict, forecasting the weather is easy.

It’s not just that meteorologists have tools and data and models and formulas to predict the path of a storm. Other fields also have tools, data, models, and formulas.

The difference lies in the big factor at play in almost every other field, that weather forecasting doesn’t have to consider:

Human behavior.

The course of a storm is not influenced by human decisions, actions, and emotions. Whether the sun shines is not dependent on how we react to the news.

On the other hand, the stock market and real estate market are primarily driven by perception, reaction, and emotion. The perception that a city is in distress can keep buyers away and cause owners to sell. Unpleasant news about a company can cause stockholders to sell their shares.

People respond to polls with one answer but may do something different in the voting booth, if they show up to vote at all.

Studies show we are poor predictors of our own future behavior, let alone others’ behaviors.

We cannot predict future outcomes.

At best, we can give an educated guess based on past activities and results. But the past isn’t the future. A strategy that worked in the past may not work now.

This also applies in our work. Everything we do is an experiment. Throwing things at the wall to see what sticks is the only strategy.

This is unsettling, because certainty is one of our core human needs.

And, this is life. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. That’s what makes it fun and interesting.

What can you do?

Learn to live with the uncertainty.

Pack an umbrella, enjoy the sunshine while it lasts, and learn to dance in the rain.