Best free weather info

[pcatterall]

I was using Accuweather but the site seems to have changed for the worse.
Any recomendations for Wales and Cornwall?

 

[NickRobinson]

my choice-

http://www.xcweather.co.uk/

Nick

 

[jakeroyd]

xcweather works for me

 

[LadyInBed]

There's this weatheronline
or this weatheronline.
or something a bit more colourful

 

[pcatterall]

Thanks, all look good will study in detail!

 

[Conachair]

Don't the free ones get their data from the same place anyway?

 

[Bosunof]

I quite often use magic seaweed... being a raggie I need wind info and not too bothered about rain and sun! www.magicseaweed .com

 

[johnalison]

For the last couple of years I've been using passageweather.com. It's handy if you want to save charts for later perusal. http://www.passageweather.com/

 

[Martin_J]

For quickness I just use the Met Office website.. It gives five days, updates every three hours and the wind strength this last 12 months has been spot on.

Met Office five day UK forecast

 

[wiggy]

I use mark stronge weather portal http://www.stronge.org.uk/ lots of god links

 

[MailASail]

Hi folks. You can learn about a lot of weather resources from The Weather Window here:
http://weather.mailasail.com/

Especially see Frank Singletons pages


I think the main thing to be aware of is that the vast majority of internet weather comes from a *minority* of original sources. What you are often comparing is the format and delivery of information. For example MailASail provide a bunch of weather info by email, but most of that info is sourced from the US NOAA weather office and as such you can get *the same info* by web from NOAA.

In the same way I hear for example people saying something like "Dont get your weather from [moving weather] get it from [saildocs] - I tried both". These are *the same data*, but usually the person giving the advice tried each on different days and had different opinions on the data as a result...

Also I see people doing (sensible) things like looking for confirmation by checking say 2 out of 3 forecasts. Problem comes if they choose the three providers who are sourcing their weather from the same upstream source... Now you will get agreement because *its the same data*, not because the forecast models are in agreement...


So in conclusion - always check the *source* of the data you are obtaining and don't assume that its generated by the site you are retrieving it from (in fact there are few sources of weather forecast in the world and it requires large resources to do it well, so very likely your forecast is not being generated by the website you are looking at it on)

Good luck!

Ed W

 

[GrumpyOldGit]

For the last couple of years I've been using passageweather.com. It's handy if you want to save charts for later perusal. http://www.passageweather.com/

+1 for passage weather, very accurate on wind and precipitation

 

[franksingleton]

Basically, there are two kinds of forecast. Totally objective and with subjective input.

Most free objective forecasts that you see are from the GFS with the only differences being in the presentation eg XCweather versus Magic Sewed versus Windguru versus Windfinder. Use whichever you find easiest, there will be no difference in the information.

Some free forecasts, eg Windfinder, Passageweather also have output from meso-scale models but still presented on at a low spatial resolution. These will invariably start with the GFS but then calculate on a finer grid but with no more observational data input. On the scales used there will be little systematic benefit in using these over and above the GFS.

Most GMDSS forecasts eg Shipping Forecasts and Inshore waters Forecasts from any marine forecast centre will have human, subjective input. Inevitably, these will be broad brush because of limitations in length of forecast, number of words that can be used, comprehension. These, eg UK Met Office, Météo France, Met Éireann, Jersey Met etc should be better than the purely objective forecasts for the first 24 – 36 hours or so. Beyond that you will do pretty well with GFS from any source. Forecast charts – say http://weather.mailasail.com/Franks-Weather/Latest-Uk-Forecast-Charts-5-Days will have some added value supplemented by http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/extended_outlook/extended_outlook_printable.html

 

[Slamdunc]

have you tried www.windguru.cz ?

 

[James W]

+1 for passage weather, very accurate on wind and precipitation

+ 2 for passage weather, fantastic site.

 

[franksingleton]

have you tried www.windguru.cz ?

See my post No 13.

 

[franksingleton]

+ 2 for passage weather, fantastic site.

See my post No 13.