Crowdsourcing the forecast

Here's a great story by Farhad Manjoo on Slate about how Weather Underground are rolling out their new locally-aware weather forecasting system.

Weather Underground’s system takes most of this NWS data into account, and then it adds even more. In particular, the site has assembled a huge network of constantly updating automated weather stations. These stations are owned and maintained by weather enthusiasts—people who love to track precipitation in their own backyards. They agree to share their data with Weather Underground because the site offers free archiving; you can see what your station was reporting months or years ago, easily, from anywhere.