Anyone use Weather HQ website?

ProDave

ProDave

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For a long time I have used the Weather HQ website. Not only will it give you a weather forecase it will also show live data from many weather stations, and not just live data but historical data.

e.g https://www.weatherhq.co.uk/weather-station/inverness-/-dalcross

However for the last few days it only seems to be updating it's live weather station data once every few hours. Previously that was updated typically every 20 minutes.

Is it just me or my computer or are others experiencing that?
 
ProDave said:
Well obviously nobody on here uses Weather HQ

So I will pose a different question, where else can I look at live (or nearly live) data from weather stations around the UK?
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Windy.Com has live data and 5 or 10 days history displayed along with the forecast ofbthe different models. And has live (or nearly) buoy and ship data. Also live radar showing lightning strikes. Best of the bunch at the moment imho.
 
Windfinder

Click on “Map”

Create a favourite

Gives you current and past data
 
Sorry Dave, it’s the app.

Just download it, type in the airport,

Currently 6 knots ENE. 17 degrees.
 
Back to the OP. It really all depends on what you want, how you want it and why you want it.

The Norwegian and Finnish Met services are good organisations. They use models such as HIRLAM based on output initially from ECMWF. Like most national weather services, as opposed to private services, they will have as good an initial data analysis as is possible. They will not be markedly better or worse than forecasts based on the US GFS or the DWD ICON. However much detail a forecast is claimed to provide, there are limitations on predictability. Simply, small detail on a size scale around 30km will not be predictable useful for us. By the time you get a forecast based on, say 00 UTC, several hours will have passed and detail of such sizes will be at or near the end of their life. Computers cannot predict, deterministically, the formation of such features.
 
What you have to remember is that all these services are based, ultimately, on one or another of the GFS or, occasionally, ICON. The presentation varies, of course. They may use different algorithms to derive weather and other information. The forecasts can be no better than the original.
 
franksingleton said:
What you have to remember is that all these services are based, ultimately, on one or another of the GFS or, occasionally, ICON. The presentation varies, of course. They may use different algorithms to derive weather and other information. The forecasts can be no better than the original.
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Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about weather forecasting...

That seems a strange claim. If 'They may use different algorithms to derive weather and other information' surely that implies that some forecasts may be better than others. If, for example, those algorithms added knowledge of local effects to the basic information/forcast then there is the possibility that the new forecast will be better than the original.
Do you not consider it possible for a 'human' forecaster to improve on the original data? Are you not ruling yourself out of a job?
 
alahol2 said:
Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about weather forecasting...

That seems a strange claim. If 'They may use different algorithms to derive weather and other information' surely that implies that some forecasts may be better than others. If, for example, those algorithms added knowledge of local effects to the basic information/forcast then there is the possibility that the new forecast will be better than the original.
Do you not consider it possible for a 'human' forecaster to improve on the original data? Are you not ruling yourself out of a job?
Click to expand...

If the algorithms were for a specific area or location there would be something in what you say. That is not the case as far as I know. Search for “Why are all my weather apps different?” - a Guardian article. There is no perfect algorithm any more than there is a perfect weather model. There is so much local effect on weather and so much variation, signal noise, in the weather that any algorithm is going to be hit and miss as far as detail is concerned. They are often good on the general pattern but rarely on detail. The strong winds currently battering us ner Lorient were forecast a week ago. The gale force winds predicted 24 hours ago are subsiding quicker than expected.

Not only are there variations in models but, also, variations in how forecasts are presented. MeteoConsult, for example, takes the GFS and produces an average for an area. The GRIB output from which they are derived gives values at specific grid points. Some apps will interpolate between grid points points.

Whatever app is used the accuracy of a forecast comes down to the NWP models used.
 
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