Woman decodes the weather rain forecast and it doesn't mean what you think

A woman has decoded the vague language of weather apps, finally figuring out what the "per cent chance of rain" means on our forecasts.

The Texan TikTok user said she believed the percentage of rain predicted to occur was an indication of how likely it was to occur.

In her video viewed over 9.3 million times, the woman reveals that's no longer true.

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Responding to the question "what is something you found out late in life that you should have known earlier but just didn't?", the woman shares her "embarrassing weather" revelation.

"I thought that when they said there's a 30 per cent chance of rain, that it meant that there was 30 per cent chance that it was gonna rain," the woman explains.

"I never ever ever knew that it meant that it's 100 per cent going to rain and it's going to be in 30 per cent of your area."

She continues to explain, "so like if it says 100 per cent, your whole entire area that you're asking about, your ZIP code or whatever - it's going to blanket the whole thing."

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"Am I the only one who didn't know this until they were grown?" she asks.

Since sharing her clip, over 1.9 million people have liked the post, with tens of thousands claiming they were just as shocked as she was.

"You found this out this year? I found out this video!" said one user.

"36 and I guess I'm still learning," shared another.

However, many meteorologists claimed the woman had gotten her facts wrong.

The official TikTok for The Weather Channel got involved, explaining that when a meteorologist says there's a certain percentage of rain, they're calculating the percentage of precipitation - known as "POPS".

The meteorologist said the "percentage of rain" is calculated by the "confidence" of rain times the forecasted area.

"Let's say I'm 100 per cent sure that 30 per cent of the forecast area will see at least some measurable rain, then I forecast 30 per cent chance for rain," the meteorologist explained.

"Important to remember, the percentage has nothing to do with how much rain falls. You could have a 10 per cent chance for rain and still end up with flooding if you get caught under a rogue thunderstorm."

He added: "It doesn't help that a lot of different meteorologists have different definitions but this is the actual technical definition."

People seemed to be more baffled than before with the explanation, but fortunately even the meteorologist admitted to getting "pretty confused" by it as well.

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