Meer Bhardwaj of Newton, 11, has created a weather forecasting website. Courtesy photo
Meer Bhardwaj has always dreamed of becoming a meteorologist.
Now, at 11 years old, the Newton boy has launched Nubo Weather, a website that averages forecasts from six sources. According to the website, Nubo “shows consensus data, source-by-source breakdowns, live radar, extreme weather alerts, and the latest weather news—all in one place.”
“I’ve been interested in weather since I was 5 or 6,” Meer said.
In December, Meer said, he began to plan out descriptions and content that he wanted to see on the website.
“I came up with the idea because people spend a lot of time going from site to site to see the weather to get a reliable forecast, so I decided there should just be a site where there’s lots of forecasts within it,” he said.
The website also features a section on “weather news,” which updates news articles that mention weather.
Meer’s mother, Anuja, said that after her son began to gather all of the necessary information, they plugged the details into the artificial intelligence site Claude.AI and made the website a reality.
“I think it was a learning experience for both of us—how easy it is to build things these days,” Anuja said.
The website uses data from the National Weather Service, Open-Meteo, AccuWeather, Tomorrow.io, Visual Crossing and Weatherbit, and all data comes from public sources, Anuja said.
Eric Fisher, chief meteorologist for CBS Boston’s WBZ-TV News, took note of Meer’s accomplishment. “It’s amazing the things you can do these days with [so] much data on the internet…” he said in an email to Meer. “Especially impressive in 5th grade!”
Fisher said Meer’s approach to compile information from different sources is “probably a good baseline to reduce mean error for any given day.” But he also said it still may not be the best forecast because a good forecast will still never be right all the time.
“I usually just tell people to find someone or something you like [or] trust and stick with it,” Fisher said.
Although they used Claude to build the website, Anuja said Meer is still learning to code and is a beginner.
“We want him to continue doing that to build those analytical skills and reasoning,” she said. Building the website, she added, was just a “weekend project.”
Meer’s fifth-grade teacher at Countryside Elementary School, Rachel Greene, said he is diligent, responsible and always puts his best effort into everything.
“He’s willing to challenge himself and try things that are harder than the basic things we’re learning in class,” Greene said.
But she also said Meer doesn’t shy away from talking about his interests in the classroom. Greene knew Meer liked learning about weather because he would always talk about it in class, she said—especially when there were snowstorms.
As a teacher, Greene uses a weather app every day to see what it will look like outside before she takes her students to recess.
“I think it’s a great concept,” she said of Nubo Weather. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a student who has a really strong passion in a certain subject and goes out of their way outside of school to develop something this advanced.”
Meer is already thinking about a future in meteorology. He said he has been looking at top schools to study the field and has come across programs in Colorado as a potential path forward.
For now, Anuja said, her son will continue being the “weather nerd” in the family. “I think he was inspired by seeing his vision come to fruition.”
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This story is part of a partnership between the Newton Beacon and the Boston University Department of Journalism.