A rain emoji can scare off more than half of customers from businesses — and weather services are being taken to task for how they display forecasts

The problem is that the study reported mobile weather map icons don’t tell the whole story and are often wrong. The study also shows “misleading rain icons” in weather apps could be costing some venues up to 137,000 British pounds, or about $185,000 in U.S. currency, in a single day.

“When families see a raincloud icon, many simply stay home,” Dom Strange, Chief Operating Officer at Chester Zoo, said in a statement. “The reality might be a brief shower at 6 am — but the symbol suggests a washout.”

How consumers perceive weather app predictions and the weight they give to prognosticators matters, too.

“This is reflective of analysis across a diverse portfolio of heritage sites, gardens, zoos and theme parks,” said Olly Reed, Marketing Director at Navigate, a tourism consultancy, in a statement. “Bookings don’t just shift with the weather itself, they shift with how that weather is framed. In a sector driven by spontaneity, small design choices in forecast presentation can have disproportionate economic consequences.”

It’s not just UK weather apps that get rainy days wrong

U.S. businesses have also apparently had enough of sketchy weather app emojis that predict rain that doesn’t arrive. Business Insider reports that New York-based beach business owners complain that weather app rain icons can curb customer traffic by 50%, rain or no rain.

Other American business owners share the same sentiment.

“As a partner in an outdoor seasonal golf game, don’t get me started on how often the Weather Channel app is incorrect,” Carolyn Bennett-Sullivan, Vice President of North Carolina-based Softgolf LLC, told Moneywise. “People talk about how much the weather changes here in North Carolina, and it does, yet the weather apps have a significant detrimental effect on our business.”

In eight seasons running Softgolf, Bennett-Sullivan said that if there’s even a 50% chance of rain, company staffers see a downturn in booked tee times. “Recently, we had a customer from out of town cancel because of a rain forecast,” she noted. “When we called him, he didn’t realize the weather was fine at Softgolf. We had to refund him the full payment. Ouch!”

Bennett-Sullivan said there’s “no doubt” weather-prediction errors have cost Softgolf thousands of dollars over the years.

“We haven’t tracked the exact amount, yet based on July’s weather and forecasts, our numbers were off by $5,000-$7,000,” she said. “There’s no question it has an economic impact on an outdoor business.”

Weather-tracking companies say their mobile technologies are evolving, but say there’s always room for improvement.

“The ‘rain icon’ conversation is a microcosm of a bigger issue in the weather space,” Rohit Agarwal, CEO of The Weather Company, which includes The Weather Channel app, told Moneywise. “As the industry evolves, the real opportunity isn’t just redesigning apps. It’s helping people make decisions rather than giving them just static maps or isolated data points.”

True value comes from providing historical and localized context, Agarwal said, and moving beyond deterministic ‘yes or no’ forecasts helps transparently relay the probability and likelihood of certain scenarios.

“A better-looking icon doesn’t solve uncertainty, which is why we’re focused on giving people the depth, range and actionable context they need to plan with confidence,” he noted.

Mobile app icons are designed as snapshots on purpose

For consumers increasingly accustomed to running their lives on short bursts of information, a rain icon can have a much greater psychological effect than the amount of rain it represents.

“A forecast might indicate a brief shower is possible for one or two hours, but a single rain icon can make the entire day look like a washout,” John H. Bryant, a federal court-qualified forensic meteorologist with 30 years of experience in weather analysis, told Moneywise. “For a customer deciding whether to visit an outdoor attraction, eat at a restaurant with a patio, attend an event or take a day trip, that visual signal may be enough to change the decision.”

Bryant noted the weather app icon is not the forecast itself, even if consumers believe it’s good enough for them.

“It’s a simplified representation of a much more complicated forecast,” he said. “People tend to remember the symbol more than the probability, timing or duration behind it.”