Weather Forecasting websites

HERC

HERC

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Ian
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Can any of you lovely people point me in the direction of a weather forecasting website that is more accurate than the BBC?

A couple of times over the weekend I went out to try and do some startrail photography and both times I was let down by the good 'ol Beeb

Both times the BBC site said it would be cold but clear and both times when I arrived it was cloudy and raining.

Whilst I appreciate that weather forecasting is never 100% accurate I would hope there is something better than what I have been using so far.

Cheers in advance
 
Would have thought the met office was probably the best bet - although I suspect would the BBC not pick up there info from there ?

I use the one on my iPhone and it's pretty reliable
 
On the whole I find XCWeather to be reasonably accurate however even it pretty regularly let's me down, anything over 2 days often is impossible to really gauge at this time of year I find...to be honest often the best thing I can do is to check the above plus BBC and maybe a third and try and get an average of the forecast
 
I find the most accurate to be the detailed map you can get for your local area from the Met Office. Seeing how the rainfall moves over the day over the area gives you a good idea of how much change would be needed to change the weather. If there's no rain forecast where you are, but rain forecast only a mile or two away, then a much smaller change will change your weather than if there's no rain within twenty miles of you.
 
To be fair, you would be better moving to another country with more predictable weather.
The British weather is notoriously difficult to predict accurately.
 
Almost everywhere gets their forecast from the Met office. A couple of the ladies who work in their forecasting department are students of my wife and they can never give an accurate forecast!!!

Best bet is to head for a suitable location whenever the forecast looks good and hope that you get a few clear periods. The law of averages would eventually reward your efforts.
 
Nod said:
Almost everywhere gets their forecast from the Met office. A couple of the ladies who work in their forecasting department are students of my wife and they can never give an accurate forecast!!!

Best bet is to head for a suitable location whenever the forecast looks good and hope that you get a few clear periods. The law of averages would eventually reward your efforts.
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Yep and I've driven hundreds of not thousands of fruitless miles like that :LOL: not that it would ever stop me...especially after so long not being able to do it too
 
Strangely enough the most accurate site I have found (though not infallible of course) is a Norwegian one - yr.no. I find it ten times better than the Met Office or the BBC. You can get a detailed hourly forecast or a 9 day long term one.
 
Thanks for all the replies,
I will check out the suggestions.
 
The Met Office site is good if you enter your specific area.
I notice they make due allowance for different altitude etc.
The first five days have almost hour by hour significant conditions including wind gusts on the drop downs below.
 
I also use xc-weather but any forecast is never very good for unsettle condition. If I'm planning to go out to watch the stars I use this usefull link which really give you a good idea of what is coming in your direction.
http://www.sat24.com/en/eu?ir=true
 
For doing night-time star stuff, you're probably better off using one of the resources aimed at astronomy rather than general weather forecasts. They'll go in to more detail about the expected cloud cover. CalSky provides quite a nice cloud cover prediction chart (along with just about every other astronomical information you might desire).

For general weather, these days I tend to use yr.no (the Norwegian equivalent of a Met Office-BBC relationship). I've no idea if it's more reliable, I just like the format of the charts it provides!
 
I've another weather related question..are there better weather conditions I should be looking out for that will result in better sunsets...I know the old adage red sky at night and all that but wondered how true it was
 
andyred said:
Would have thought the met office was probably the best bet - although I suspect would the BBC not pick up there info from there ?

I use the one on my iPhone and it's pretty reliable
Click to expand...

The weather presenters you see on the BBC are actually on secondment from the Met Office. Same information source, different presentation.
 
I have an app on my phone called Dark Sky. That has radar maps. It is usually quite good at forecasting rain as well.

I think there is another one called Weather Underground which uses data from people's home weather stations.
 
The Met office app seems to be more reliable overall, but what I don't understand, is that while the BBC use the Met office, if you compare the two for a specific region, more often that not you will get differing reports!
 
Regarding sunsets - without going into stuff like saturation, adiabatic lapse rates and dew points - the most important feature is about 40km or so of clearish air between the western edge of the cloud system you are currently underneath and the setting sun. This allows the light to get up underneath the cloud as the sun dips below the horizon. You can get it with all cloud states but the lower the cloud the smaller the window of opportunity for a sunset and the shorter it lasts. High cloud will light up last and stay lit the longest. Satellite images are invaluable for this, they will show you the cloud state on and over the horizon, giving you a clue as to how late the line of light from the sun to where you are is likely to be reliable.
 
Weather Underground

I'm a cyclist and I watch (predict) the weather with a religious fervour. I don't want to get caught out, need to dress properly, need to know wind speed/direction and make sure I have the right kit etc. I haven't found anything better than Weather Underground for it's information and simplicity. The BBC dumbs down the forecast into a simple "it might rain today in some places". And the Met Office, well, I just don't get on with that luminous neon green. Admittedly their recent redesign is better than it was. What I like about WU is the ability to instantly see 10 days worth of weather at glance in one continuous stream. You can also drill down into a single day and see the same info hour by hour.

After a while you get good at reading the pressure graph and cloud cover. It gets quite addictive (for someone as geeky as me!)

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I've given up on weather forecasts after far too many disappointments. I don't know why they even bother with 5 day forecasts, let along 10 day ones, when they can rarely forecast the next 24-48 hours accurately. his is one of my biggest frustrations.
 
I find most weather forecasts inaccurate, sometimes watching the rain pour down whilst my Met Office app is telling me there is no rain !

I put it down to the unpredictability of British weather when there are clouds around. It seems the Met office finds it hard to predict !
Often you have to use your own judgement.

I will have a look at Weather Undergorund as it seems quite detailed and may help to make up my own mind.
 
Rasp is pretty good, but very gliding focused. The best more general forecast I've found is meteoblue.com
 
HERC said:
Can any of you lovely people point me in the direction of a weather forecasting website that is more accurate than the BBC?

A couple of times over the weekend I went out to try and do some startrail photography and both times I was let down by the good 'ol Beeb

Both times the BBC site said it would be cold but clear and both times when I arrived it was cloudy and raining.

Whilst I appreciate that weather forecasting is never 100% accurate I would hope there is something better than what I have been using so far.

Cheers in advance
Click to expand...


The BBC don't actually do any weather forecasts. All the forecasters you see are Met Office staff on secondment.

You basically need to understand how models work and how to read them. They work on grid squares, so if it's expected to rain at any point in the square, they say rain. The models are quite good, what they sometimes get wrong is the timing of fronts arriving etc.

Met office use forecasters to add local knowledge, others like NOAA GFS don't take account of local geographic features. Beware of relying on multiple websites, you need to check they aren't just multiple UIs showing the same data.
 
Yr.no are very accurate. Used them for years. They have a widget for android too. To be honest i gave up looking at the forecasts years ago... a good plan B is better than a forecase imho :)
 
i have a cast iron 100% accurate weather predictor - I hang a bit of string outside my window , if its wet is raining, if its horizontal its windy, and if i can't bend it its freezing cold
 
Tried at least 10 different weather apps and at least 10 of them were wrong most of the time (although living where I do in the Highlands can prove almost impossible to predict weather). In fact, at one point I had three installed and all the forecasts were different. I use BBC app for a general idea but wouldn't rely on it completely.
 
As some of you know, I do my own forecasts under the non de plume that is the Cloud Master and these are some of the stuff I use . . .

High resolution charts for 48 hours: http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=330

Euro 4 output: [URL]http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=prec&HH=3&ARCHIV=0&PANEL=0&ZOOM=0&PERIOD=[/URL]
[URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=330Euro 4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=prec&HH=3&ARCHIV=0&PANEL=0&ZOOM=0&PERIOD=Met office fax charts: http://www.sailingweatheronline.com/old/bracknell_all_highres.htmRain radar: http://www.raintoday.co.uk/Live lightning: http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=enAnd finally, my own weather page, but it only covers Kent:']
Met office fax charts: [URL='http://www.sailingweatheronline.com/old/bracknell_all_highres.htmRan']http://www.sailingweatheronline.com/old/bracknell_all_highres.htm[/URL]
[URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=330Euro 4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=prec&HH=3&ARCHIV=0&PANEL=0&ZOOM=0&PERIOD=Met office fax charts: http://www.sailingweatheronline.com/old/bracknell_all_highres.htmRain radar: http://www.raintoday.co.uk/Live lightning: http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=enAnd finally, my own weather page, but it only covers Kent:'][URL='http://www.sailingweatheronline.com/old/bracknell_all_highres.htmRan'][/URL]
[URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=330Euro 4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=prec&HH=3&ARCHIV=0&PANEL=0&ZOOM=0&PERIOD=Met office fax charts: http://www.sailingweatheronline.com/old/bracknell_all_highres.htmRain radar: http://www.raintoday.co.uk/Live lightning: http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=enAnd finally, my own weather page, but it only covers Kent:'][URL='http://www.sailingweatheronline.com/old/bracknell_all_highres.htmRan']Rain radar: http://www.raintoday.co.uk/[/URL]
[URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=330Euro 4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=prec&HH=3&ARCHIV=0&PANEL=0&ZOOM=0&PERIOD=Met office fax charts: http://www.sailingweatheronline.com/old/bracknell_all_highres.htmRain radar: http://www.raintoday.co.uk/Live lightning: http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=enAnd finally, my own weather page, but it only covers Kent:'][URL='http://www.raintoday.co.uk/Live'][/URL]
[URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=330Euro 4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=prec&HH=3&ARCHIV=0&PANEL=0&ZOOM=0&PERIOD=Met office fax charts: http://www.sailingweatheronline.com/old/bracknell_all_highres.htmRain radar: http://www.raintoday.co.uk/Live lightning: http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=enAnd finally, my own weather page, but it only covers Kent:'][URL='http://www.raintoday.co.uk/Live']Live lightning: http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=en[/URL]
[URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=330Euro 4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=prec&HH=3&ARCHIV=0&PANEL=0&ZOOM=0&PERIOD=Met office fax charts: http://www.sailingweatheronline.com/old/bracknell_all_highres.htmRain radar: http://www.raintoday.co.uk/Live lightning: http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=enAnd finally, my own weather page, but it only covers Kent:'][URL='http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=enAnd'][/URL]
[URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=330Euro 4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=prec&HH=3&ARCHIV=0&PANEL=0&ZOOM=0&PERIOD=Met office fax charts: http://www.sailingweatheronline.com/old/bracknell_all_highres.htmRain radar: http://www.raintoday.co.uk/Live lightning: http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=enAnd finally, my own weather page, but it only covers Kent:'][URL='http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=enAnd']And finally, my own weather page, but it only covers Kent: http://thecloudmaster.webs.com/[/URL]


[URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=5Euro4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&VAR=prec&HH=3&BASE=-&WMO=&ZOOM=0'][URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=5Euro4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&VAR=prec&HH=3&BASE=-&WMO=&ZOOM=0'][URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=5Euro4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&VAR=prec&HH=3&BASE=-&WMO=&ZOOM=0'][URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=5Euro4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&VAR=prec&HH=3&BASE=-&WMO=&ZOOM=0'][URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=5Euro4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&VAR=prec&HH=3&BASE=-&WMO=&ZOOM=0'][URL='http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=5Euro4 output: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&VAR=prec&HH=3&BASE=-&WMO=&ZOOM=0']
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Last edited:
PS: Not sure why the fonts had gone all wobbly in my last comment but hopefully it should work.
 
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