In our recently released report, Best Places to Live or Work in the United States if You Need to Know What the Weather Will Be Like Tomorrow 2025, we analyzed 793 locations in the United States to identify the cities with the highest overall average accuracy. The overall average accuracy averages forecast and persistence accuracy for high temperatures and low temperatures within three Fahrenheit degrees of the actual observed temperatures, as well as precipitation accuracy.
The most accurate combination of forecasts and persistence were found in Hawaii and California, with each having five locations ranked in the top ten with accuracies over 80%. Elsewhere, the Southwest United States, including the majority of California, southern Nevada, southwest Arizona, far southern Texas, and central and southern Florida saw overall accuracies of 70% or greater.
These are the best places to live for those who desire to know what the weather will be like in the next few days based on a combination of forecasts and what one may guess for the next day based on current weather (persistence). Generally, the farther south and/or closer to a large moderating body of water a location is, the more accurate forecasts and persistence will be for the coming days.
For more detailed information, download our full report here.
For the first time ever, we have created an interactive ArcGIS StoryMap to complement our report and allow you to inspect locations on your own! The StoryMap also includes slider maps to compare forecast versus persistence for various metrics.
All raw data for this study can be found here.