How emoji and cherry blossoms helped fix weather reports

There are 29,000 weather stations across the globe. 20,000 of them are in the US. This leads to huge gaps in coverage and means weather forecasters are often making educated guesses. That’s a big problem for us all and the secret to fixing it begins with cherry blossoms. No, really, stick with me here. Japan’s obsession with spring flowers will make weather forecasts better for everyone. In Japan, the cherry blossom season is a big deal. Hanami (‘flower viewing’) is an important tradition and there’s fierce competition to accurately forecast when the trees will start to bloom. The 2015 forecast by the Japanese Weather…

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