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Just wondering what sites/apps you guys use to check out weather forecasts for any impending shoots and why you prefer those.
Thanks
Thanks
In the UK the most accurate I've found is the UK Meteorological Office, provided I select a local forecast for the nearest location to me for which a detailed local forecast is available. It's not an app, it's a website. For some reason nearly everyone I know uses an app. Whenever their app has disagreed with my information from the Metoffice Web page, mine has been the best.
The published forecasts are very much a best guess scenario, based on all sorts of radars, experience and computer predictions.
And yet, 73 years ago, weather forecasters predicted a reasonable 'let up' in the poor weather out in the English Channel of a few hours upon which was launched the Liberation of occupied Europe!
I wonder sometimes how much we really have progressed through the use of current, advanced technology.
We must remember that, dealing with the UK, we're into a whole new ball game. (If you can't see a hill it's raining, if you can see a hill it will rain soon!)
Indeed.Weather forecasters also have a good idea when their forecast is pretty secure and when it's a bit iffy, but it's difficult to convey that to the public...
They all seem to rely quite heavily on the Met offices basic data. But all interpret it differently.
The BBC seem to be doing very well now they have got a new contractor to do the heavy lifting.
But have they?
I too use the met office web page. Of all the sites/apps, I find it the easiest to use and the most reliable (I can't get on with the met. office app/small screen of my phone). If I'm wanting to pinpoint gaps in the rain, I use the rain forecast animation/slideshow on this http://www.leisureweather.co.uk/radar-rainfall.php - zoomed right in to the location.In the UK the most accurate I've found is the UK Meteorological Office, provided I select a local forecast for the nearest location to me for which a detailed local forecast is available. It's not an app, it's a website. For some reason nearly everyone I know uses an app. Whenever their app has disagreed with my information from the Metoffice Web page, mine has been the best.
Please, don't even get me started on this subject! I've tried a couple of well known sites/apps this year and, to be honest, probably the kindest description of their detailed predictions is 'not as accurate as they say it's going to be'!
Scenario: The night before, the local forecast is for fine weather with sunny intervals followed by some rain showers in the afternoon from 4pm onwards. It's there, in front of you, in full colour, in hourly pictorial increments, on your computer screen or phone app. So, you set your alarm, wake up early the next day to make the most of the forecast weather, have your breakfast, then check the weather forecast again just to be sure... and it's changed!
Not just a little bit, but quite significantly (at least to you!). Gone is the 'after 4pm rain' and that's been replaced by 'Rain showers' at hourly intervals from 9am onwards, until 5pm, when it's going to be sunny until dusk! Then, if you can be bothered to check again at mid-day, it could well have changed again! :banghead:
I know it can often be difficult to accurately forecast the weather in mainland UK, so why should anyone want to 'pretend' to be more accurate than they realistically can be? If the forecast was something like 'Unsettled, with sunny intervals and rain showers from dawn till dusk - and that is as accurate as we can be given the data we currently have' then I could have coped with that. I'd have probably had a nice lie-in, followed by a leisurely Sunday breakfast, then weighed up my options and made plans with the rest of my family as to what we were going to do. Then looked out of the window and seen which way the wind was blowing, what colour and how high any clouds were, and taken our chances based on that.
Instead, we look at a website or phone app that gives a 'detailed hourly forecast' complete with pretty little weather icons and symbols, and we put our trust in that and hatch our best laid 'mice and men' schemes by it. Sorry, not any more, as I no longer believe them!