Plaincast
What the forecast actually says — NWS Area Forecast Discussions, decoded into plain English.
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 Des Moines, 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.
Warm and dry conditions continue Saturday and Sunday for most of Iowa with highs in the mid to upper 70s.
Spotty showers possible in northern Iowa on Sunday, along with cooler temperatures in the mid 50s to low 60s.
Off and on spotty light rain chances through the upcoming week with temperatures in the 60s to low 70s.
Scattered clouds cover the area early this morning with light wind from the south-southeast. A surface low sits across North Dakota and Manitoba with trailing trough axis across the plains and attached to the developing southern stream cutoff low. As northern and southern streams separate today the approaching cold front stalls out. This keeps Iowa dry and warm today with precipitation across South Dakota and Nebraska. Winds may occasionally gust near 20 mph, but will be lighter than what occurred on Friday. By later this evening the surface boundary begins to sag into northern Iowa with spotty light showers possible. These continue off and on Sunday as the cloud front stalls out across northern Iowa. This will result in a rather notable temperature gradient across the area with far northern Iowa in the mid 50s while most of the state reaches the 70s.
This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Des Moines discussion at /o/DMX/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.
Data from the National Weather Service. Translated by Claude. About · For developers & agents · Subscribe: RSS feed for this office · Source on GitHub