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 Miami, 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.
Smoke from wildfires in the area could produce lower visibilities and unhealthy air quality over portions of the Everglades and western suburbs.
Scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms will continue to develop over the interior and east coast metro areas through the early evening hours. An isolated marginally severe storm or two is possible.
Scattered showers and thunderstorms will continue to develop across the interior and east coast metro areas along sea breeze boundary collisions as well as additional thunderstorm outflow boundary collisions through early this evening. The atmospheric column remains unstable across the interior and east coast as SB storm energy values range from 4500-5000 J/kg across these areas this afternoon. With DCAPE values ranging between 1000 and 1200 J/kg, this will be supportive of the stronger thunderstorms having the potential to produce wind gusts in excess of 50 mph this afternoon into early this evening. As the evening progresses and daily heating begins to wane, shower and thunderstorm activity will gradually diminish across most areas during this time frame. Low temperatures tonight will generally range from the lower 70s across the Lake Okeechobee region to the upper 70s along the coast.
This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Miami discussion at /o/MFL/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.