On the morning of November 4, a topic about the iPhone weather app showing extreme temperature differences for next Friday surged to the top of Weibo's trending list. The incident began late the previous night when many users discovered that the built-in weather display on their Apple (AAPL) iPhones was showing abnormal data, with Jincheng showing temperatures ranging from -32 C to 16 C for next Friday. It was not just Jincheng. A large number of iPhone users found that their built-in weather apps displayed temperatures plunging below zero on November 13 (next Friday), with readings of -28 C, -31 C, -32 C, and more appearing across Beijing, Shanghai, Qingdao, Henan, Hunan, and other regions, all showing the same absurd low temperatures simultaneously, with temperature swings of nearly 50 degrees in a single day, as if a cold wave had been activated with a single click.
The official account of the Public Meteorological Service Center of the China Meteorological Administration, @ChinaWeather, responded: "A minimum temperature of -32 C? Everyone disperse, there is no such temperature difference at all, and it has now returned to normal. Do not worry. Even though the El Nino event has developed into the strongest since monitoring records began, it will not be that cold right now." According to the medium-term weather forecast released by the National Meteorological Center on November 3: over the next 10 days (November 3-12), aside from northeastern Inner Mongolia and northern Northeast China where average temperatures will be 2-4 C lower than the same period in normal years, most other parts of China will see temperatures close to or above normal, with northern Xinjiang, central and western Inner Mongolia, the eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and Yunnan running 2-3 C above average. Over the following 11-14 days (November 13-16), aside from Tibet and Yunnan where temperatures will be slightly below normal, most other parts of China will see above-average temperatures, with the eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, North China, Inner Mongolia, central and southern Northeast China, the Huanghuai region, the Jianghuai region, and Shaanxi running 2-4 C above average.
This sudden "extreme cold warning" was not real. As of the time of publication, Apple (AAPL) had already fixed this bug, and the weather forecast for November 13 had returned to normal. It is worth noting that this is not the first time the iPhone weather app has shown absurd temperature predictions. On July 5 of this year, the iPhone weather app displayed temperatures in Jincheng approaching 47 C. After verification, the Jincheng Meteorological Observatory determined that this was a system data error in the phone brand's built-in weather app, and the meteorological department had not issued any related extreme heat warnings. The Shanghai Meteorological Bureau previously explained that the temperature data provided in meteorological services are the background atmospheric temperatures measured by standard meteorological observation stations in accordance with unified technical standards, while some weather apps built into mobile phones do not use actual observational data but instead use other data and methods for estimation. We also remind everyone that weather forecasts displayed on mobile apps may be inaccurate, and everyone should promptly follow the latest weather forecasts from meteorological departments.
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