Area Forecast Discussions are the real forecasts, written 3 to 4 times daily by NWS meteorologists reading the models and interpreting what they mean for your area. They offer far deeper insight than any weather app, but they're written in dense meteorological shorthand. Plaincast uses Anthropic's Claude to summarize them into plain English, side by side with the annotated original.
Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for Boise, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.
Scattered thunderstorms in southern areas Monday afternoon and early evening.
Little chance of thunderstorms the rest of the week, except a slight chance in the central ID mountains Wednesday afternoon, and near the NV/ID border Friday-Sunday afternoons.
Warming Monday and Tuesday, holding level Wednesday, then gradually cooling the rest of the week.
Thunderstorm threat shifting out of Twin Falls County late today then dry through the night. Mid-high level moisture will increase from the southwest overnight and Monday morning with scattered thunderstorms developing by noon in Twin Falls County, early afternoon in Owyhee County, and mid afternoon in southeast Oregon, lasting until sunset. Clouds will increase but storms should stay south of the Snake River in ID, and south of Burns- Ontario in OR. Monday will also be 4 to 8 degrees warmer than today even with increasing clouds, as a short wave ridge aloft comes in from northern California. The ridge and thunderstorms will exit Monday night but further slight warming will continue Tuesday, with high temperatures reaching the mid-upper 90s in the Snake Basin and 85 to 95 elsewhere.
This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Boise discussion at /o/BOI/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.