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, November 13 at 5:39 AM CST.

Messages

Dense fog in far southwest North Dakota this morning.

A warming trend to well above average temperatures is favored through early next week.

Dry through early next week, with low to medium chances for precipitation returning mid to late next week.

Update

The forecast remains in good shape. Surface observations and webcams show that widespread dense fog remains confined to Slope and Bowman Counties, with patchy dense fog across the rest of western North Dakota.

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.