Meteo Consult forecast app no longer free?

[NPMR]

I have used Meteo Consult weather app for a long time and was not asked for a fee.

But my attempt to check sailing weather this morning was met by an ad page asking for £4.99 per month and I could find no way to move beyond the page.

At this cost it it is not worth my while so will not be able to use Meteo Consult.

Or have I failed to see some other information?

 

[Lightwave395]

I'm getting the same, although the 'Spot' forecasts and individual ports are still there the coastal forecasts seem to demand a subsription now - oh well, it was good while it lasted !

It's the same on the website

 

[Boathook]

Same for me. Just have to use bbc coastal towns forecasts as they give nearly 2 weeks worth.
I think I have the windy app but no doubt they might start to charge.
I do think that the met Office should give uk tax payers access to longer period forecasts seeing that my taxes contribute to their existence.

 

[John_Silver]

Strange (but good).....I've still got Inshore Areas (which is what I use - I always just 'interpolate,' between the two areas either end, when crossing Biscay, Celtic Sea, Channel). On iPhone (not updated since end of April, when I left UK), using a UK SIM in N Spain. No idea which (if any) of those variables might make a difference, to requiring a subscription. Hope I'm not in for a rude shock. Meteo C is the most accurate forecast I've found.

 

[Forty_Two]

I use the app a lot so have coughed up for the annual cost of €49.90 so £41.58 to me @ exchange rate of 1.2.

Small cost in the scheme of things for a good app & forecast.

 

[Yngmar]

The spot forecasts still work for me, sea areas and such demand money now. Shall refuse further updates then!

It was pretty good for some places, especially in the Mistral (wind made in France I guess) it is spot on with hourly forecasts. Shame!

 

[Sandy]

Still works for me, but I am currently in France.

 

[Forty_Two]

Still works for me, but I am currently in France.

I was in France & it happened on my phone but not on my tablet, even though both had the same app version, very strange. Having paid it's better when it first starts whereas before there were some delays. Also the blank space halfway down the forecasts has gone which is good.

 

[Momac]

The pricing is not too bad .
I used a free site and found the sea state forecast proved to be poor . While the marine meteoconsult forecasts have been more detailed and have been accurate .
I am an occasional visitor to the sea so will pay for this as and when required.

 

[franksingleton]

Why use MeteoConsult? As far as I can see, allthat they do is to reformat output from freely available services. . Almost certainly MC USES the GFS. There are many free sources of forecast data from the GFSM ICON, ECMWF. Unless you value the presentation of MeteoConsult there is no point in using them, especially now they charge,

 

[Momac]

On Meteoconsult I quite like the way wave heights are presented including wind sea separately to swell an wavelength.
If that is available via another source please provide a link.

 

[Boathook]

Why use MeteoConsult? As far as I can see, allthat they do is to reformat output from freely available services. . Almost certainly MC USES the GFS. There are many free sources of forecast data from the GFSM ICON, ECMWF. Unless you value the presentation of MeteoConsult there is no point in using them, especially now they charge,

Any links to these others ? Are they available as apps or just websites. I did enjoy using meteoconsult and it seemed 'reliable'. Shame metoffice doesn't do something similar.

 

[Daydream believer]

I do think that the met Office should give uk tax payers access to longer period forecasts seeing that my taxes contribute to their existence.

Is that actually true? I thought that the met office was supposed to be self supporting these days. For instance, it had to compete for the BBC weather forecast & lost out to Meto consult. If it had been tax payer funded one would have assumed it would have been freely available to the BBC. Still, as it comes out of our licence fee , who cares what the BBC spends its money on

 

[LadyInBed]

A good alternative is Windguru. I use the Windguru Old app as I prefer the presentation.

 

[Yngmar]

Why use MeteoConsult? As far as I can see, allthat they do is to reformat output from freely available services. . Almost certainly MC USES the GFS. There are many free sources of forecast data from the GFSM ICON, ECMWF. Unless you value the presentation of MeteoConsult there is no point in using them, especially now they charge,

Because they're often more accurate, especially in situations that sailors care about, which is sudden weather changes and strong winds.

According to some blog post of theirs (from 2018):

MeteoGroup uses a combination of three weather prediction models to arrive at the best result. These are the European model (operated by ECMWF), the American model (operated by US NCEP), and the British model (produced by UKMO). Our long-standing use of each of these models has taught us how well each scores on the various elements, which allows us to give a certain weighting in relation to each weather element to be calculated.

While this sounds like marketing waffle, in real life we've regularly found MeteoConsult to have the bad weather that's going to hit the fan at anchor a few hours before it hits you, whereas ECMWF/GFS showed nothing unusual was happening even in their following update. That's for most of the regions we sailed anyways (English channel, Atlantic coast and all over the Med), with the notable exception of the Aegean sea (ECMFW and GFS were good here, Meteoconsult useless) and South Peleponese (where absolutely none of them had the faintest idea and you just had to wait and see what weather you'd get or ask the Greek fishermen and add some pessimism).

They also have/had hourly data for free, which at least on Windy you have to pay to get. Alas, I find the subscription fees a bit too high especially if you end up paying for multiple services, as we always compare.

 

[franksingleton]

Any links to these others ? Are they available as apps or just websites. I did enjoy using meteoconsult and it seemed 'reliable'. Shame metoffice doesn't do something similar.

Re links/apps, see Listing of GRIB and other objective forecasts - Franks-Weather - The Weather Window

Agreed re the Met Office. It is incomprehensible thst they do not follow the lead of NOAA -GFS, DWD - ICON, Meteo France - ARPEGE, Canada, CMC.

Meteo Condult can only be as reliable as the GFS.

 

[franksingleton]

Is that actually true? I thought that the met office was supposed to be self supporting these days. For instance, it had to compete for the BBC weather forecast & lost out to Meto consult. If it had been tax payer funded one would have assumed it would have been freely available to the BBC. Still, as it comes out of our licence fee , who cares what the BBC spends its money on

I think that it was really the costs of the presenters and graphics thst swung the balance. MeteoGroup uses Met Office information and radar information. The Met Office does have to recover its costs. They charge other government departments, eg MCA, Civil Aviation etc. During regular government financial reviews, some money is allocated to the Met Office for its free public service. The amount supplied snd the cost has to be justified to HMT.

 

[franksingleton]

Deleted

 

[Sandy]

Why use MeteoConsult? As far as I can see, allthat they do is to reformat output from freely available services. . Almost certainly MC USES the GFS. There are many free sources of forecast data from the GFSM ICON, ECMWF. Unless you value the presentation of MeteoConsult there is no point in using them, especially now they charge,

I find it more accurately reflects what I see and feel.

I had a chat with one of the guys from the Met Office at the Sailing and Weather day at Greenwich a few years ago. It was interesting to learn that the Met Office always gives the maximum in any sea area in its forecast.

 

[franksingleton]

Because they're often more accurate, especially in situations that sailors care about, which is sudden weather changes and strong winds.

According to some blog post of theirs (from 2018):

You are not quoting from an independent source. Ire reminds me of a quote from the early days of ITV, “They speak well of it in the adverts.”

While this sounds like marketing waffle, in real life we've regularly found MeteoConsult to have the bad weather that's going to hit the fan at anchor a few hours before it hits you, whereas ECMWF/GFS showed nothing unusual was happening even in their following update. That's for most of the regions we sailed anyways (English channel, Atlantic coast and all over the Med), with the notable exception of the Aegean sea (ECMFW and GFS were good here, Meteoconsult useless) and South Peleponese (where absolutely none of them had the faintest idea and you just had to wait and see what weather you'd get or ask the Greek fishermen and add some pessimism).

They also have/had hourly data for free, which at least on Windy you have to pay to get. Alas, I find the subscription fees a bit too high especially if you end up paying for multiple services, as we always compare.

Unlike some other private weather services, MeteoGroup is staffed by professional meteorologists. However, they can be no better than the models that they use. Any broadcast or automatically genersted forecast is limited in accuracy not only by the imperfections in the models but also by the constraints in presentation. If you are paying for a tailor made service then MG would be better in detail - just as the Met Office would be. For services that you pick off the internet, there can be little overall differences between suppliers. There will be differences in detail between models as I am currently seeing sitting in Piriac sur Mer. Differences are largely random and probably due to small differences in data analyses and models. If you use the Windy,com comparison facility, you will find thst each model is usually within the uncertainty range of the other models. If one is an outlier, trust none.

A final comment, remember that Weather forecast models have in-built smoothing of about 4 or 5 grid lengths. For the ECMWF and the Met Offic4, that is about 40 or 50 km. For GFS, ICON ets it is about 70km. That is the highest resolution these models can predict. ICON-EU should do better with its 7 km grid although I can not see any better performance although I have not done a detailed study. Nobody ever tells you about model smoothing, apart from me. See the Skippers Cockpit Weather Guide . Modesty forbids that I should give the name of the author!