Accurate weather forecast ?

ben@31

Hello,

I was wondering what website people use to get their cycling weather forecasts ?

I used to like the Met Office webiste as it gave an hourly forecast. However recently Ive been tearing my hair out at how inaccurate it is.

I try to plan my weekend, so I'm cycling on the best day and doing other stuff during the worst weather. But then they change the forecast around. Today it was ( and still is) forecast to rain all day. So I haven't gone out on the bike, only to find its been sunny and dry for the past 5 hours, I could have got a long route in !!!

What grips my Sh*t is, they spend £95,000,000 on a new computer and to show for it, they cant even tell me if it is raining or dry? I suggest they return the computer and get their money back, as my 48k ZX Spectrum is probably just as reliable and only cost £175, back in 1982.

I appreciate that weather, like Mario Balotelli, does what he wants. But the Met Office should be honest if they dont know what the weather is going to be like. Rather than blag it and get it completely wrong, I wish I had a job where I could f*ck up at work and its totally expected.

Spending time off my bike, for no reason is starting to get to me grrrrrrrr

lincolndave

I use an app called weather live, to be honest it motto bad at all, on one of the pages it shows a map of your area and what the weather is suppose be like every six hours for 24 hours

jgsi

The BBC seem to revel in its use of Met Office data to tell you what the weather was like for the past 24 hours... ot is that just Look North West

coulddobetter

Accuweather .hourly forecast for 4 hour window plus maps best i found by miles.

de_sisti

ben@31 wrote:

Hello,

I was wondering what website people use to get their cycling weather forecasts ?

I used to like the Met Office website, as it gave an hourly forecast. However recently I've been tearing my hair out at how inaccurate it is.

What grips my Sh*t is, they spend £95,000,000 on a new computer and to show for it, they cant even tell me if it is raining or dry?

You could just poke your head out of your window to find out.

dowtcha

AccWeather and windyty app for wind direction. No rain foretasted for this morning but it still rained. This is were packable rain jackets are a must, I left mine at home.

daxplusplus

If it's very windy and unsettled than no forecast site is going to be able to tell you what's happening with much degree of accuracy. Or should I say the'll probably get the weather right but the timing wrong.

I use xcweather to give me a hint of what might be happening in the next 24 hours or so but then use http://www.raintoday.co.uk/ in the hours before hand if I know bands of rain are coming in .. that will be miles more accurate cos it actually shows you the rain and the speed\direction at which it's approaching you.

P.s. yep - BBC spends most of the time telling you what weather you've just had - why?

slowmart

Localised showers are impossible to forecast and due the multiple changing aspects, wind speed and direction, humidity, temperature, air pressure etc...if you then factor in a decent club ride of 50 miles you'll cover a chunk of geography, oh and keep in mind if it's a moist airflow, clouds and therefor rain will usually occur in hilly areas.

The weather in the UK has always been challenging and unless you learn to love the wind and rather rain you'll miss out on some fantastic days out on your bike.

Personally I look at the BBC forecast the night before and plan around that and head for the area with the least chance of rain or ensure the homeward leg has the wind at our backs.

webboo

Slowmart wrote:

Localised showers are impossible to forecast and due the multiple changing aspects, wind speed and direction, humidity, temperature, air pressure etc...if you then factor in a decent club ride of 50 miles you'll cover a chunk of geography, oh and keep in mind if it's a moist airflow, clouds and therefor rain will usually occur in hilly areas.

The weather in the UK has always been challenging and unless you learn to love the wind and rather rain you'll miss out on some fantastic days out on your bike.

Personally I look at the BBC forecast the night before and plan around that and head for the area with the least chance of rain or ensure the homeward leg has the wind at our backs.

The problem with BBC is they forecast light winds so you plan your ride and guess what you find yourself 40 miles from home and heading in to a block head wind at 30 mph.
You got to be some sort of massocist to love that

thegreatdivide

If rain is forecast then Netweather's live rain radar. And for a pretty accurate forecast (not looking any further than 48, or at a push 72 hours) the the Weather Pro app is pretty good.

john1967

So you sat.there for 5 hours waiting to see if it rains.There is loads of light weight summer shower gear available.Shove a raincape in yer back pocket and get out on yer bike.

SME

ben@31 wrote:

Hello,

...I used to like the Met Office webiste as it gave an hourly forecast. However recently Ive been tearing my hair out at how inaccurate it is.

I try to plan my weekend, so I'm cycling on the best day and doing other stuff during the worst weather. But then they change the forecast around. Today it was ( and still is) forecast to rain all day. So I haven't gone out on the bike, only to find its been sunny and dry for the past 5 hours, I could have got a long route in !!!....

I used Met Office too.
Today for Canvey Is. <5% rain forecast...
4 heavy downpours today!

So if I'd have trusted it for a ride I'd have got absolutely drenched. Tomorrow I'm doing an Evans sportive and once again the forecast is <5%, but somehow I feel I'll be trying out the new Castelli Squadra!

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

If it's very windy and unsettled then no forecast site is going to be able to tell you what's happening with much degree of accuracy. Or should I say they'll probably get the weather right but the timing wrong....

Yep, agree. They can look at satelite pictures and forecast trends, but at the end of the day it IS just a forecast.

mfin

Worldradar app to see how rain is progressing over the area in the last couple of hours, updates every 15mins I think.

rickeverett

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

If it's very windy and unsettled than no forecast site is going to be able to tell you what's happening with much degree of accuracy. Or should I say the'll probably get the weather right but the timing wrong.

I use xcweather to give me a hint of what might be happening in the next 24 hours or so but then use http://www.raintoday.co.uk/ in the hours before hand if I know bands of rain are coming in .. that will be miles more accurate cos it actually shows you the rain and the speed\direction at which it's approaching you.

P.s. yep - BBC spends most of the time telling you what weather you've just had - why?

+1 .. they have two apps on Android and iPhone. Weather Pro and Rain today... the latter gives you warnings withing a set amount if minutes that rain will hit your locality. This uses the will it rain today radar.

Weather gives you full hour by hour details and a 14 day forecast. Accuracy is miles better than the BbC / Met imo

JimboM

I've found Weather Underground to be pretty accurate

kajjal

This tends to give you a lot of detail if you put in the place name and press the more details option :-

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast

If it is very scatter showers then you just have to gamble.

Sutton_Rider

As you said its a 'FORECAST' it's not and has never been a guarantee. Because of where the UK is unless there is a large stable air mass over us it is almost impossible to predict exactly where a shower or a front will be at any given time and place.

bendertherobot

The Met Office app is a necessary evil in a world where people yearn for a pin point location specific forecast. It's far from reliable because of the factors that go into it. Indicative only.

A better bet is to look at what the day is like. If there's a massive high pressure cell sat over us, rain is less likely. If the barometer reads 990 and it's blowy then that's going to combine with summer heat and produce showers. You can't pinpoint them.

Best bet? Look at the indicative weather. Have a look at rain today to see where any current bands sit. Take a gilet.

ben@31

When out on the bike today for hours. The first time in two weeks. And for a change there were no rain, even clear blue sky's towards the end. Absolute bliss.

rolf_f

You won't get a better forecast than the Met Office. That's a fact. But it as Sutton Rider says, it is a forecast and there is uncertainty. If you want to get a better forecast, then learn to understand the forecast better and what it says - then you'll get a better feel for the degree of uncertainty in it. If we are sat in the middle of a high and it isn't windy, then you can be reasonably sure the forecast will be accurate for several days. If the forecast is for winds and frontal systems, you need to pay more attention; eg if a front is forecast to pass over tomorrow, then the forecast might say bad weather tomorrow, good weather the day after. But if the winds change, the front might not pass over until the following day - so tomorrow is the nice day and the day after is nasty. That is perceived as a 100% incorrect forecast which it is in terms of a black and white blind acceptance of the forecast but if you understand what is actually happening, you won't be surprised if the wrong day is the nice one!
It would all be a lot better if people were better able to understand probabilities in forecasts.

lakesluddite

I have the BBC Weather app on the phone, but tbh all it does is get me depressed/optimistic for usually no reason whatsoever. You can almost guarantee that the bad days will turn out fine, and those days with no rain will eventually be populated with black clouds. It's accuracy is okay for about 5-6 hours in the future, but anything more than that is just educated guesswork, which makes the fact they give a extended forecast for the next 10 days somewhat pointless - it's just a gimmick to get you to download it.

supermurph09

XC weather

bungle73

I think people's perception of Met Office forecasts isn't helped by the way that they're presented on the TV. The impression given is that they are able to give precise forecasts for very specific areas timed to the minute, when that isn't the case at all, for the reasons already given.

pilot_pete

I think what most people are missing by recommending various apps is that the vast majority will be using data supplied by the met office (if they are uk based). The BBC etc all get their data from Bracknell. So unless you find out the source of the data, the chances are it is just another interpretation of the same basic data!

If you look at aviation meteorology suppliers (there are plenty of free ones) and learn how to read aviation forecasts as they are in a basic coded system such as 240/15 (which means a wind coming from 240 degrees with a speed of 15 knots) you can get a more detailed presentation of the Met Office data including chances of weather phenomena such as rain occurring, as in 'quite likely' or 'less likely' to occur during a stated time period.

Obviously you need to pick an airport/ airfield near your route but they are usually reasonably accurate and at least they give a description of how likely the weather is to change as opposed to just a picture of half a black cloud with half a sun sticking out and a rain drop!

PP