Weather forecast services.

plloydie

plloydie

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Paul
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Just wondering which site people use to find what the weather will be like when heading out. I want to go and photograph the autumn colours in the Wye valley but looking at the BBC weather service its going to be gloomy pretty much all day. The Met office site states its going to be sunny from mid day onwards but which do I choose from or are there better services than these two? Its a 40 minute drive and a 30 min walk to the location.
 
If the drive and walk are nice and not too much like hard work (and even more so if there's a decent pub/café at/near the location), I'd take the risk.

I usually look at 2 or 3 sites/apps (Met office, BBC and the one that comes with Win 10!) and make sure I have the right clothes for the worst so I can enjoy the far end whatever the weather (although if all 3 say it'll be persisting down, I might not go.)
 
Use a pine cone, it'll be more reliable than the BBC or met office ;) In my experience metcheck is right some of the time (as is a guess) but as it'll show you rain all day at 9 in the morning, then at 11 it'll may show sunny and dry all day I wouldn't truet it too much.
For D Day Churchill got a reliable weather forcast, yet with all the tech we have now they still cant do it again.... gets off soapbox.
 
I check several places and average them out.

BBC weather
The weather widget on my phone
Clear Outside app
UK rain radar map on metoffice.gov.uk

For overall trends, my phone and clear outside are usually accurate, the latter providing some useful details. For precipitation, watching the previous two hours on the metoffice map lets you make a pretty solid prediction for the next few hours.
 
If I need a more accurate forecast, I use this

z.jpg
 
Thanks all for the replies. Update, The BBC and microsoft weather were a mile out. They stated there would be cloud all day. The Met office forecast was the closest, they, predicted the sunny spells after 13:00 the sun started to make an appearance about 11am. Unfortunately or fortunately which ever way you look at it by then I had arranged to have a few lunchtime beers with some mates.
 
XC Weather and Weather & Radar apps, XC is especially reliable for the Highlands, but tbh, you simply can't beat just being there and waiting.

Weather changes all the time, and most forecasts are updated hourly, so it's best just to take a risk and go for it.
 
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Steelo said:
Weather changes all the time, and most forecasts are updated hourly, so it's best just to take a risk and go for it.
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To true.

When my wife first came here, I use to tell her, if you don't like the weather, wait a minute :)

I worked in schools for the 20 years before I had to go on pension, and despite the talk of the weather, there are in fact very few "wet plays" where kids have to stay indoors!
 
The BBC no longer use the Met Office and have cheap contact with a MeteoGroup. Given the skilled staff and powerful computers used by the Met office, they should be best. I play tennis twice a week, so we all take interest in the weather. I think the met office is right at least 90% of the time but do be aware that they provide probability statistics with their forecast so use these. Where there is a complete clash between the BBC and Met Office, it is the BBC who are most often wrong in my location.

Dave
 
Darksky.net
 
The simple fact is the weather forecast is just that ... a forecast. No matter which forecaster you use anything further than about 2 hours into the future is a guestimation based on the average of several computer models. They are only ever 100% accurate when we have a decent sized area of high pressure directly over the UK.

MeteoGroup are a multi-national operation and actually bigger than the MetOffice. In the UK, they use their own weather stations plus public access ones (just like the MetOffice does) and run pretty much the same computer models. More than 70% of local authorities in England - not sure about the rest of the UK - use MeteoGroup for their winter weather forecasting to assist in their decision making as to when and where they should grit the roads. MeteoGroup don't do cheap contacts, BTW :)
 
yr.no and metoffice, and by the latter I mean specifically satelite maps and just make my own predictions from there
www.metoffice.gov.uk

UK weather map - Met Office

Our weather map shows you the latest weather and forecasts for the UK. Includes forecasts up to 5 days and observations from the last 24 hours.
www.metoffice.gov.uk
Any other satelite view would do just as well
 
It is worth remembering that 60% of the time, the weather tomorrow will be the same as today.
 
I recently downloaded Clear Outside.
I studied the icons, and the chances of a good Sunrise were favourable with little low cloud and some medium and high cloud.
Unfortunately, there was nothing!!
When I looked at the top of the screen, I noticed it was set for Exeter - hundreds of miles away!!
I've now sussed that it defaults to the HQ in Exeter and there is a "location" button :LOL:
So, 3rd time lucky I hope ;)
 
I can see the sky over the Met Office HQ and it's not rare for them to be reporting something quite different from what I can see!
 
LongLensPhotography said:
yr.no and metoffice, and by the latter I mean specifically satelite maps and just make my own predictions from there
www.metoffice.gov.uk

UK weather map - Met Office

Our weather map shows you the latest weather and forecasts for the UK. Includes forecasts up to 5 days and observations from the last 24 hours.
www.metoffice.gov.uk
Any other satelite view would do just as well
Click to expand...
Metoffice just decided their service was too good for us and pulled the plug on everything and anything that was useful and instead gave us a modern map of fancy colours and nothing useful at all.

Instead I found something even better right from the source.

Eumetview

view.eumetsat.int view.eumetsat.int

Enjoy!
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Metoffice just decided their service was too good for us and pulled the plug on everything and anything that was useful and instead gave us a modern map of fancy colours and nothing useful at all.

Instead I found something even better right from the source.

Eumetview

view.eumetsat.int view.eumetsat.int

Enjoy!
Click to expand...
Yes I agree, used to be very useful and I checked it before setting off for a job. It is now absolute rubbish. The other day I was checking the rain radar and it was not raining for Torbay, it was p***ing down at that moment. Useless.
 
I use the look out the window weather forecast as it seem to be more accurate most of the time.
 
Icee said:
I use the look out the window weather forecast as it seem to be more accurate most of the time.
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That's what I do. I live in Lincoln which is on a steep hill (called Steep Hill for some reason) - uphill weather is usually different from downhill weather but the best any of the forecast services can manage is just Lincoln.
 
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