Where there is “Fake News”, is “Fake Weather” likely to follow? Google doesn’t seem to know where I am. At least the Google News homepage no longer knows. Allow me to explain.
I use Google News as my web browser homepage. For many years, near the upper right hand side of the page there has been a box that presents my local weather forecast. Some weeks ago, the box started presenting the weather for another part of my state. I provided Google with web feedback and some days later noticed that the caption changed to “Your Local Weather”.
A number of days passed and we were experiencing the umpteenth heatwave of Summer 2018. However, the outside temperature reported by Google appeared to be way too mild for our local reality. I clicked the link below, which took me to weather.com, and learned that Google News thinks I am in Dearing, KS. Interestingly, this is near the geographic center of the continental United States and is often used to represent a geographical location for the USA when no other details are known.
On the other hand, my Google Home devices all seem to know my location and report the correct weather (well, their understanding of the correct weather) for my location. Chromecast, however, is as confused as the Google website.
I’ve reported this issue via the Google web feedback mechanism and hopefully I will again be able to get my real weather instead of Google’s “Fake Weather”.
In the meantime, I am living the dream. Google is doing a bad job of tracking me and I can always claim I was in Dearing, KS should the need arise!