[Closed] Met office v BBC weather

Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

Met website forecasts for my location are mostly accurate.

Delete BBC app

I use metcheck as they tend to be a bit more optimistic.

Invariably it's not as rainy as the forecasters predict. Even if it is, getting wet is not nearly as bad as sitting indoors looking out at clear blue skies.

Met office Mountain forecast for Snowdonia should be there abouts.

Metro Group took over the BBC weather franchise ~2 years ago iirc and their forecast has consequently been dire.

Metcheck seems to almost always think it's going to rain around here, I gave up on it ~2 years ago, when it had been reasonably good for the previous ~3 years.

I use Met Office and Weather Underground.

Met has recently had a weird trend where it forecasts rain for day X for days beforehand, but night before or morning of day X they decide it will be dry, only for it to start raining at original forecast time!

personally find Accuweather best - and their Minutecast is very good for rain (for me at least)

personally find Accuweather best

This and as above I too find the BBC pessimistic

what do yr.no say?

BBC always seems to be on the pessimistic side when it comes to rain. I've always found the google weather search with the little sliding bar pretty accurate for timing of rain. It will rain a bit, you will be fine.

Try this one windy,com

You can show and hide different layers, depending on what yo are interested in.

You can even choose different modelling systems to see how that changes the forecast.

just deen dabbling, I like the BBC widget, but it seems to be less stable recently.

Now downloaded accuweather and using that widget - I like the 'real feel' temperature mode, so here it's allegedly 8c, but its freezing with the wind and rain, and the real feel mode is saying -3c which is more realistic.

+1 for accuweather,checking their minutecast and radar just before a ride is pretty accurate here in S.Yorks.

I like ventusky.

Dark sky.

In a different league. Rain forecast is amazing.

Small fee.

BBC weather forecasting has seemingly been generated at random for the last year or so. Met office is generally OK, especially if you can track it for a few days and look at the map as well as the cloud/rain/sun icons.

There's rain forecast just North / West of C-Y-B on Saturday, so whether you stay dry or not depends on just where the edge of this rain ends up. Looks like it would be showery, rather than biblical if it does catch you.

I've seen the Dark Sky app, and it was fantastic at showing this sort of thing and for short range (next few hours) rain forecast.

In Cumbria here and I always find the Met office is a lot better than the BBC as said above especially if you use the map.

If I remember correctly the
Met office is strategically funded as a national requirement
David Cameron forced the BBC to make savings so they bought in a cheaper service
Essentially we now pay for two weather systems

Some or all of the above may be absolutely wrong but it is a Good story 😊

I think MeteoGroup primarily use ECMWF model data.

That's OK tho, cos the ECMWF super-duper-puter is based in Reading, so those hi-tech jobs remain in the UK.

Oh look.

Apparently not.

In 2017 it was decide to move it to Italy.

Why, just why, might that have occurred? Eh?

I found be the most accurate weather forecast is looking out the window.

Depends if your glass is half full or half empty.

But if you leave it outside, it might get topped up.

I found be the most accurate weather forecast is looking out the window

That's not a forecast. It's a nowcast.

BBC is usually pretty good for Pembrokeshire but I tend to use windfinder to give an idea of what’s coming our way over the next 48-72 hours.

Just noticed that the met office has now updated for showers at CYB tomorrow, so looks like “BBC 1 - 0 Met Office”, at the moment!

We use meteogroup at work (water company) and as a rule we have found it much better than the met office. No forecast is perfect so taking a range of values and making a decision would seem sensible

No love for YR.no?

Always found that to be excellent. Except for wind, when I use windy.com or XCWeather.co.uk

so looks like “BBC 1 – 0 Met Office”, at the moment!

surely depends if it rains or not

+1 for Dark Sky. I cruelly fool my parents that it is about to rain in 18 minutes and they cannot fathom how I know.

Met office.

yr.no is very good too.

Another dark sky user here, its the "ronseal" of weather apps and very accurate.

Netweather live radar

Yr.no
Mwis.org
Ventusky
Rainalarm

Depending on what I'm doing, if going to any great height, it's mwis.

No love for YR.no?

Always found that to be excellent. Except for wind

I'm not a fan of it for mountain forecasts, the wind speeds and temps are usually inaccurate. I think it's a function of the models they use as the inaccuracies are pretty constant. Maybe it works ok for rain prediction or at lower altitudes?

yr.no

Ventusky

Both are excellent - and got yesterday's deluge spot on:

Weather Underground for right here, right now  (i recorded 28mm of rain yesterday!)

Aye, I agree spin, for local weather it's fine.

Windy Wilson on Facebook, an amateur forecaster, patter merchant and all round good guy is about as good as any on them!

Before going on any lengthy ride, I check 3 different weather forecasts and always pick the one that offers the best weather.

It's better to be out on the bike disappointed about the weather than sitting inside wishing you had gone out. 🙂

Dark sky.

In a different league. Rain forecast is amazing.

Small fee.

Free on the website (perhaps paying would mean it remembers the things I care about - wind and rain, deg C etc?). I like it. I also like yr.no . If I really want to understand though I go for Grib files and see the detail...

If two different weather models are giving wildly different predictions either its just an indicator that the condition are too uncertain to be sure either way or you are potentially unwittingly not comparing apple with apples. e.g. is the actual location identical? are you comparing the same time period (if it will rain at 02:30-03:30 then BBC are right, but if its dry from 03:30 to 23:59 are Met Office wrong?), what do they define as "rain" - I think most meteorologists would say that even a few spits of rain for a few minutes is precipitation and therefore ticks the "it rained" box, but even if you were out all day you might not regard it as having rained - do they all use the same threshold?

To me the question is not will it rain, you are going outdoors in Wales in February I don't need a supercomputer to tell you that you should probably go prepared for that possibility. The questions might be - how heavily will it rain? is there window in the day when it is likely to be better/worse? I think you can tell a lot more from a map too - if you see a solid band of rain coming across the whole of England and Wales - you can be pretty sure its going to rain, and the question is just when and how hard. If you see its very patchy you know it will be harder to predict, and if you see the tail end of weather is just hitting (or missing) the area you can expect possibility of error in the length/direction of the weather. Obviously the closer to the time the easier to predict. Its useful therefore to be able to see when the model was last updated, but for longer term planning I find its useful to see how consistent each model was with the last - if models every 4 hrs for the last 48 hrs have said it will rain on Sunday, there's a good chance Sunday will be wet. if it keeps changing its mind - then I think you can infer anything its too soon to be sure.

Windy Wilson

His patter’s shite.

#ooyahoorsir #easynow 🤙

I've ran with him a couple of times, he's a funny wee guy, without trying to be. 😁

I think most meteorologists would say that even a few spits of rain for a few minutes is precipitation and therefore ticks the “it rained” box, but even if you were out all day you might not regard it as having rained – do they all use the same threshold?

You can see the level of rain coming via a chart and satellite over x time period. You can also see how the wind is blowing that weather front.

You can set the level at which you are forwarned before it comes.

Also, the fee is for the App.

You also can have a daily summery too via notification. I really like this feature.

Have a look at the FlowX app for map-based rain prediction.

A friend showed me it, and it kind-of fills the gap left behind by the late, lamented BBC Rainwatch app.

I still use BBC most of the time personally though, it's generally accurate here.

It depends.

The problem with any forecast where you tell it a postcode and it tells you the weather for the next few days is it makes no indication of what might actually be happening. Is that rain at lunchtime in two days time a big front traveling slowly across the country in which case its going to rain at some point. Is it warm front (and thereofre just showers), or is it a fast moving front being dragged out and could easily pass north or south of you and you never know. Equally the opposite, if it says sunshine, might just mean the front is predicted a few miles away or youre sat in the middle of a high pressure, you wouldnt know.

Much better off looking at the actual maps, and the isobars, which are still on the bbc website, then you can make a judgement about whats going to happen (e g is it just clouding over or is this the rain that was predicted for 5 miles away hitting us).

N.b. when the bbc app says 90% chance of rain that means anything from 90% chance of a few spots in the hour to 90% chance of it raining torrential for the whole hour. Its just a confidence level because its trying too hard to predict whats going to happen exactly at your postcode.

I trust the app enough to plan a ride in my lunchbreak or after work, wouldnt trust that sort of forcast for the next day, you need to go look at a map.

I use RainToday. £25/year but very good. Gives rain forecast for T+2.75 hrs.

I’ve been using WeatherProHD since it appeared on iOS around ten years ago, and it’s been really pretty accurate, certainly it was much more accurate than any other weather app available and I tried a few.
I pay a subscription which gives me hourly forecasts, but it’s the satellite view and precipitation radar that I use as much as anything, because you can actually see the weather that’s coming towards the location where you’re at.
WeatherProHD is the app for Meteogroup, which is who he Beeb use now.
Personally I think it’s better than the MetOffice.

Another vote for windy.com. Four or five different met agencies and so click and use the one that best suits your weather requirements 😁

Met Office is completely useless. Tried to work with them a few years ago on a collaboration with some interesting technology, but they were the most hopeless bureaucratic mess I’ve ever encountered.

I’m not sure that changing the forecast as the forecasted day gets closer is actually forecasting at all - it’s just looking out the window.

JP

Windguru.cz if you are near the coast .Full gambit of computer generated models to choose from, find a forcast with pretty colours that tells the story you want to hear , and roll with that

So Met Office says dry at Coed y Brenin tomorrow, BBC says 90% chance of rain

If it rains for 10mins they could both claim to have been pretty accurate

I’m not sure that changing the forecast as the forecasted day gets closer is actually forecasting at all – it’s just looking out the window.

I don't think you know how forecasting works...