Weather can surprise

Rain on Route uses forecasts, and forecasts can be wrong. Weather is always unpredictable, especially rain during the monsoon.

Rain on Route How it works

Will it rain on your road,
where, and when?

Route
Vehicle

Trip verdict

    Along the way

    tap a stone

    Another road

    Break before the rain

      How the verdict is made

      A normal weather app tells you about one place. A road trip passes through many places over several hours, so Rain on Route checks each stretch of road at the hour you will actually be on it.

      1. Find the road

        Your start, any stops and your destination are turned into map points, and the road route between them is fetched from OSRM, an open routing service built on OpenStreetMap.

      2. Plant a milestone every 25 km

        Points are placed along the road roughly every 25 km, up to 25 points for long trips, so no stretch is skipped.

        Chennai → Madurai, 456 km → 20 milestones

      3. Work out when you reach each one

        Arrival time at each milestone comes from your departure time and the slower of your vehicle's speed and the route's average speed.

        Two-wheeler 45 km/h · Car 70 km/h · Bus 50 km/h

      4. Ask the forecast for that exact hour

        One request asks Open-Meteo for the hourly forecast at every milestone. Only the hour you arrive is used. Three independent weather models (ECMWF, GFS and ICON) are compared to see if they agree. Milestones you reach in the next 90 minutes use a 15-minute forecast instead.

      5. Grade each stretch and give one verdict

        Each milestone gets a rain level from the millimetres expected in that hour. The share of wet milestones gives the verdict, and the worst stretch is named with its place and time.

        "Rain on parts of the route. Heavy rain near Villupuram around 3:10 pm."

      Rain levels

      LevelRain in that hour
      Dry< 0.2 mm
      Light0.2 – 2.5 mm
      Moderate2.5 – 7.5 mm
      Heavy> 7.5 mm

      Rain is rain: any level from Light up counts as wet, the same for a bike, car or bus. Dry = no rain at any milestone. Mostly dry = under 25% wet. Rain on parts = 25–60%. Rainy trip = over 60%, or more than 50 km of heavy rain in a row.

      Confidence

      High
      Trip within 3 days and the weather models agree at most milestones.
      Medium
      4–7 days ahead, or the models disagree.
      Low
      8–15 days ahead. Check again closer to the trip.
      Typical
      Beyond 15 days there is no forecast. You see how often it rained in the same week over the last 5 years.

      Also on the road

      Fog
      Visibility under 1 km at any milestone.
      Gusts
      Wind gusts of 40 km/h or more.
      Heat
      Feels like 38 °C or more.
      Pack
      A short list from the verdict and warnings: raincoat, rain covers, water, headlights, a warm layer.

      Extras

      Break
      Before the first moderate or heavy stretch, named fuel, food and toll stops within 2 km of the road, from OpenStreetMap.
      Other road
      Trips without stops are also checked on one alternative road, with its rain compared to the fastest.
      Radar
      Rain actually falling now and over the last 2 hours, from RainViewer. It shows what is happening, not a forecast.
      Did it rain?
      After your trip, one tap tells us if the verdict was right. That is how we track accuracy.