That puny pulse of rain Wednesday morning may have been a welcome watering for the plants and grasses and evidently didn’t cause problems — except for the heavy hitters in the weather-app universe.

Weather forecasting has gotten a big boost from machine learning. How that translates into what users see can vary.

If you believe James Spann is already a ubiquitous meteorological presence, particularly during dangerous storms, just touch that dial. On Aug. 11, the popular, award-winning Birmingham meteorologist ...