Weather Forecasts - Who do you believe?

[Steve Houghton 1]

I'm on another of my regular trips up to Blackpool this weekend to visit family, and looking at the BBC weather forecast for Sunday, they say the wind is SW early in the morning, going Southerly. If you look at XC Weather it says westerly.

I shall be chucking a glider off Parlick Fell and fortunately, in this instance, I can fly there in a southerly or westerly, but that isn't the point. Many people rely on accurate weather forecasting for partaking in many outdoor activities.

Back home if they forecasted southerly, and I went to a south facing slope, I'd be well and trully stuffed if I got there to find the wind was westerly.

Steve

A470Soaring.blogspot.com

[Phil 9]

the forecast in recent weeks has been particularly bad. With the same sight changing its forecast significantly with each update

[Robin Kearney]

Steve, I normally trust XC. I've always found them the most accurate. That isnt to say they are perfect of course!

r.

[Lee Wilson]

I usually find the Met office app more accurate than XC, although I do always check both.

[chris basson]

Hmm...
Similar problem here, Metcheck forecasts heavy rain in Shropshire on Saturday, Xcweather says its sunny!
CB

[Steve Hargreaves - Moderator]

+1 for XC Weather for me.....

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

A friend of mine worked for the Met Office for many years as one of their computer modelling team. He told me that some bright spark worked out, and proved based on past data, that if you just said "Tomorrow, the weather will be the same as today" you'd actually be right more times than the "scientific" forecasters were!

BEB

Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 14/06/2013 11:41:06

[dbflyer]

I firmly believe that the TV weather forecasters and perhaps the Met Office in general are responsible for so much lost revenue by organisations that rely on public attendance to events and such that their broadcasts should be restricted to a graphic only. None of their so called expert interpretation should be included. Let the public make their own mind up as to whether to venture out.

[TheFlyingCrust]

If you're flying close to the coast try this site. Works for me. Just input country and location. Its intended for wind/kite surfers. I fly from Ringstead and its quite accurate.

Ian

[john melia 1]

just looked out the window this morning , and the only thing i beleive is my eyes !! the weather is atrocious , oh well continue building then

[Delta Whiskey]

Agree with John ! - Used to rely on the BBC Weather, but they have got it wrong so many times recently coincedentally with their last Web Site re design. So I mostly use Yahoo weather now with their hourly forecast and windspeeds, but you really have to decide on the day you wake up !

I know this does not help if travelling to another area but pack a model and then decide when you get there and see it as a bonus if you can fly !

[thunderstreak.keith]

I find the farmers weather forecast site about as accurate as youll get. I normally use that 1 for inland flying but not too sure on its accuracy for coastal sites mind

[crispin church]

**LINK**

is my main one

followed by bbc weather site and look at the radar

[Modonaut]

I wouldn't trust the BBC for anything, never mind the weather- more often than not their forecasts are dead wrong.

[flyeruk]

I use weather supermarket. You get 5 forcasts from 5 different forecasters. I find you can compare all of them and come up with a reasonably good idea of what should be going on.

[Lima Hotel Foxtrot]

I've hung up a length of seaweed. When the seaweed is wet, the weather is raining. When the seaweed moves, the weather is windy.

I also use the met office, bbc and weather.com to give me a rough composite idea of what is coming up.

[John Privett]

I usually look at several, then pick the one that gives the most favourable weather...

Of course it's usually wrong!

I've recently had to switch the weather feed I use for our club website as the (current) wind readings were hopelessly inaccurate. The current one is showing 32km/h at the moment, which looks about right.

[Mowerman]

A member of our club lives about 2 miles from our flying site and has a home weather station which is fed into the club web site so we can check on conditions before loading the car and setting off.