Plaincast — the National Weather Service forecast, 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 Bismarck, 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.

Area Forecast Discussion · National Weather Service Bismarck (BIS) · issued Friday, September 11 at 6:33 AM CDT.

Messages

High rain chances (~70 to 100 percent) Sunday night into Monday.

Update

Cold front continues to settle through the area, and has now passed just to the south of Bismarck. This will continue through the morning, with northerly winds continuing to increase in its wake. Going forecast continues to be in good shape.

This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Bismarck discussion at /o/BIS/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.