Saturday 1 July 2023
Be your own weather forecaster
Ivor Williams has a useful TCW piece on weather forecasting, particularly short term forecasting of rain.
Be your own weather forecaster, and do a better job
ARE you responsible for a forthcoming outdoor event? Or are you planning to do the Southwest Coast Path (630 miles), the Scottish National Trail (537 miles), or a saunter to the park?
Summer in the UK usually brings a lot of showery weather, which means anything from a sprinkle to a flood. In these times of apps for anything, you consult the forecast the night before.
You have already made a wrong move. If showers are a likelihood, not one of the 20 or so forecast organisations can tell you what time it will rain tomorrow. They’ll give you useless information like ‘some showers possible’. Many will give you a forecast even more ridiculous: among symbols for each hour you discover that at 10am there is a 20 per cent risk of a shower. What use is that? The forecasting organisations, of course, can say they were right no matter what happens.
For those who don't do it already, the whole piece is well worth reading as a guide to checking current weather patterns in your area.
You need to access the Met Office’s network of 15 rain radar stations, from Druim a’Starraig on the Isle of Lewis to Predannack in Cornwall, plus two in Eire and one in the Channel Islands. If you search for ‘UK rain radar’ you will find over a dozen, the Netweather site being a good example of the different variations (cloud cover, lightning strikes etc) you can call up. I cannot recommend the Met Office’s own version because the software people have got at it and ruined what should be a simple picture of the radar echoes.
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5 comments:
As a farmer I find rain radar services invaluable (in fact I subscribe to the Netweather Premium service). As the article points out its easy to see where the rain is, what direction its going, whether or when it will hit you, or maybe skirt past, or if it is already raining, when it will clear your area. In fact it amazes me that more people don't use them instead of looking at weather forecasting apps, you don't have to pay, there are free ones. Quite often people ask me 'Is it going to rain today?' and my response is always the same - look on the rain radar, you can usually work out whats going to happen from that.
I think I have mentioned here before Netweather and Ventusky are my preferred sources of weather information. Look at the Wind, the clouds, the satellite, and the radar; the charts for the days ahead are of course computer models but you can make your own judgement. Which is likely to be as good as any as only you know the exact spot on the map that matters to you. For longer ahead look at the jet-stream, roughly speaking if that wavy line is north of your favoured spot then it should be fine, if its syncline is passing overhead then the outlook is not so good.
Sobers - yes, even the free versions are useful. I use Netweather and Ventusky to see where the rain is and where it's going, although we almost always take a waterproof anyway when we go out walking.
djc - yes thanks, you have mentioned Netweather and Ventusky before and I bookmarked both and use both. Usually I'm only interested in today or tomorrow for walking - where the rain is and if it's coming our way. Both are good for that.
Bookmarked. The best thing about them is that they don't over-dramatise the weather and give human names to light showers.
Sam - the Met Office doesn't appear to be paying enough attention to the competition. A generation is growing up which doesn't necessarily think of the Met Office when looking at the weather.
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