Is Ray's Weather Accurate? We Scored It for 118 Days
July 2, 2026
Mostly, but it trails the free apps. Over 118 scored days, Ray’s Weather averages 71.0 of 100 against verified actuals, while Open-Meteo, which is free, averages 92.0. That is a gap of about 21 points a day.
Key takeaways
- Ray’s Weather averages 71.0 of 100 across 118 scored days, with 23 days graded Wrong.
- Open-Meteo (free) averages 92.0 over the same window with zero Wrong days, about 21 points a day better.
- Apple Weather (free) averages 88.3, with a single Wrong day.
- Ray’s does have strong days. His best in June 2026 hit 90.7 on June 24.
- Every forecast is scored daily on a public 100-point model, and the data is open (CSV and JSON).
Is Ray’s Weather accurate?
Ray’s Weather is accurate more often than not (71.0 of 100 on our scale is a passing grade), but it is the least accurate of the three forecasts we track every day for Boone. Across 118 scored days, Open-Meteo averages 92.0 and Apple Weather 88.3, both of them free. Ray’s, the paid local incumbent, sits at 71.0.
For two decades Ray’s Weather has been the forecast of record for the High Country, and there is a reason people trust it. The local reputation is earned, and its hyperlocal read on mountain weather is genuinely good. We wondered whether “trusted” and “most accurate” were the same word, so we started scoring every forecast against what the sky actually did. This post is a data-backed review of Ray’s Weather Boone forecast, not a swipe at it.
What do 118 days of scoring show?
Ray’s has been scored on 118 days. It landed in the Right band (75+) on 48 of them, Meh (60–74) on 47, and Wrong (under 60) on 23. Open-Meteo, over the identical 118 days, was Right on nearly every one and never once graded Wrong. The pattern is steady, not a fluke of one bad week.
How do you read the 71.0 average?
A 71.0 means Ray’s forecasts land, on average, within striking distance of the actual highs, lows, wind, and precipitation, but drift wider than the free apps do. Most of the daily gap comes from temperature misses and, on wet days, missing precipitation totals he never publishes. One decimal, tracked daily, no rounding games.
How do we score Ray’s Weather’s accuracy?
We capture each forecast around midday, then score it against the next day’s verified actuals on a fixed 100-point scale. Temperature carries the most weight, wind and precipitation the rest. The same model runs on every forecaster, so the comparison is apples to apples. Full detail lives on how the 100-point scoring works.
How does the 100-point model work?
Points break down as high temp 30, low temp 30, wind 20, precip type 10, and precip amount 10. Temperature dominates because it is what people plan around, and it is where forecasts most visibly succeed or fail.
| Category | Max points | Full credit within |
|---|---|---|
| High temp | 30 | 2°F |
| Low temp | 30 | 2°F |
| Wind speed | 20 | 3 mph |
| Precip type | 10 | exact match |
| Precip amount | 10 | snow-aware (rain ±0.1”, snow ±max(1”, 20%)) |
Where do the actuals come from?
Actuals come from the Open-Meteo historical archive, disclosed openly on our methodology page. That creates one honest wrinkle. Open-Meteo graded against an Open-Meteo archive is a form of self-grading, so treat its number as a strong short-range benchmark rather than a perfectly independent one. Ray’s and Apple Weather have no such advantage, since they are scored against the same archive from the outside.
How does the implied-zero rule for precip amounts work?
Ray’s Weather never publishes a numeric precip amount. Under our rule, a “no precip” forecast counts as a zero-inch call, so Ray’s earns the amount points on dry days he calls dry. On days he forecasts rain or snow without a number, he forfeits that field. A source cannot bank points by leaving the hard number blank. It cuts both ways, and it is the fair reading.
Ray’s Weather vs the free apps: who is more accurate?
The free apps are more accurate over the 118-day window. Open-Meteo leads at 92.0 with zero Wrong days, Apple Weather follows at 88.3 with one, and Ray’s trails at 71.0 with 23. The paid forecast does not beat the free ones in Boone on this record. It trails the best free option by about 21 points a day. And free here is genuinely free. The whole tracker runs on a $12-a-year domain.
What does the 118-day leaderboard show?
| Source | Avg (of 100) | Days graded Wrong | Free or paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open-Meteo | 92.0 | 0 | free |
| Apple Weather | 88.3 | 1 | free |
| Ray’s Weather | 71.0 | 23 | paid |
Seven more free sources have shorter records, nine scored days each, so read these as provisional, small-sample lines, not settled verdicts:
- Met.no 95.6
- Google 94.0
- Visual Crossing 93.7
- Tomorrow.io 91.5
- OpenWeatherMap 87.2
- WeatherAPI 86.3
- NWS 84.1
All seven currently sit above Ray’s 71.0. Open-Meteo’s own longer record runs 484 days at 91.8, so the 118-day figure is not a lucky stretch.
Why do Open-Meteo and Apple Weather pull ahead?
Most of the margin is temperature. The free models nail highs and lows inside the 2°F tolerance far more often, and they publish numeric precipitation totals that earn or lose the amount field honestly. Ray’s leans on descriptive precip language, which forfeits the amount points on wet-forecast days. See it play out on Ray’s Weather vs Open-Meteo, scored day by day.
When is Ray’s Weather right, and when does it miss?
Ray’s is right often enough to earn its reputation, and its best days are genuinely excellent. In June 2026 it posted a 90.7, a five-ray Right-band forecast. The misses cluster on volatile mountain days, where a blown overnight low or an over-called snow total drags the score down. The spread between his best and worst days is wide.
Ray’s best June day: June 24, 2026 (90.7)
Ray’s best June day was June 24, 2026, at 90.7, a top-tier score by any forecaster’s standard, and proof the local read can be sharp. Days like this are why “much more spot-on than anybody else” is a fair thing for longtime users to feel. The tracker credits them in full.
Ray’s worst stretches and the 23 Wrong days
The other side of the ledger is the 23 of 118 days graded Wrong (under 60). Ray’s worst June day was June 2, 2026, at 26.1, the kind of day that pulls a monthly average down hard. Across June’s 29 scored days, Ray’s averaged 73.3 (Right-Meh-Wrong 14-11-4) against Open-Meteo’s 92.3 and Apple’s 88.0, a June gap of 19.0 points. The month-by-month detail is in Ray’s Weather report card for June 2026.
What is the most accurate forecast for Boone, NC?
For short-range Boone forecasts, Open-Meteo is the most accurate source we track, at 92.0 of 100 over 118 days with no Wrong days. Apple Weather is a close, no-setup second at 88.3. The provisional leaders (Met.no, Google, Visual Crossing) score higher still but on only nine days each, so we would not crown them yet.
Which forecast wins short-range?
Open-Meteo wins the window and holds up over the long haul at 91.8 across 484 days. It is free, its API is open, and its numbers are reproducible from the public data. For a Boone resident who just wants the most accurate next-day read, it is the pick on this record.
A fair word on lead time (short-range only)
One honest limit is that everything here is short-range. We capture each forecast around midday and score it against the next day’s actuals, so this measures next-day accuracy, not seven- or ten-day accuracy. Forecast skill decays with lead time for every source. That is settled meteorology, not something we measured. For that longer view, see how accurate a 10-day forecast really is.
So should you still use Ray’s Weather?
Use whatever you like. But if next-day accuracy is the goal, the free apps have the edge on this record. Ray’s Weather still offers hyperlocal color, storm-by-storm narrative, and a mountain read that longtime users value, and none of that shows up in a single accuracy number. What the tracker shows is narrow and specific. On the four fields we score, a free app beats the paid one by about 21 points a day. Both things can be true at once.
See every forecast scored, daily
Every number here is live and updated each day. Watch it move on the live Right Ray / Wrong Ray scoreboard, or start from today’s Dave’s Sweater Index and the headline accuracy gap on the homepage. We kept the receipts, and they are public.
Frequently asked questions
Is Ray’s Weather accurate for Boone, NC?
Reasonably, but it trails free forecasts. Over 118 scored days, Ray’s Weather Boone NC averages 71.0 of 100 against verified actuals, with 23 days graded Wrong. Open-Meteo averages 92.0 over the same window with zero Wrong days, about 21 points a day better.
What is the most accurate weather forecast for Boone?
Open-Meteo, by our record, at 92.0 of 100 across 118 short-range days with no Wrong days, free and open. Apple Weather is a close second at 88.3. Several other free sources score higher on small nine-day samples, so we label those provisional until the record grows.
Is Ray’s Weather better than AccuWeather or the National Weather Service?
We do not score AccuWeather, so we cannot rank it here. NWS we do track: it sits at 84.1 on a small, provisional nine-day sample, above Ray’s 71.0. Every forecast is scored against verified actuals, not against any provider’s own accuracy claims.
Why does Ray’s Weather score lower than the free apps?
Mostly temperature misses. Ray’s lands outside the 2°F tolerance on highs and lows more often than the free models, which costs points on the 30-point temp fields. It also uses descriptive precipitation language rather than numeric totals, so it forfeits the precip-amount field on wet-forecast days.
Does Ray’s Weather ever beat the free forecasts?
Yes, Ray’s has strong days. Its best June 2026 forecast scored 90.7 on June 24, a top-band result. Individual days like that can match or beat the free apps. Over the full 118-day window, though, the free apps hold a steady lead of about 21 points a day.
How do you score Ray’s Weather accuracy?
We capture each forecast around midday and score it against the next day’s verified actuals on a 100-point model that gives high temp 30, low temp 30, wind 20, precip type 10, and precip amount 10. Actuals come from the Open-Meteo historical archive, which we disclose on our methodology page.
Is Ray’s Weather worth it if free apps are more accurate?
That depends on what you want. For next-day accuracy alone, the free apps win. Ray’s offers hyperlocal narrative and a mountain read that a raw accuracy number does not capture, so plenty of users still find it worth following, just not because it is the most accurate.
Want the full picture? Watch the live Right Ray / Wrong Ray scoreboard update every day, and read how the 100-point scoring works to see exactly how each forecast earns its number.