Effin' Met Office again!

[CandidaAlbicans2]

Just having a little rant here. I put the washing out on the line earlier as the weather forecast from the Met Office said sun and cloud with less than 5% chance of rain all day, and the detailed map showed no chance of rain either. So why have I just had to leg it outside to bring my washing in, getting soaked in the process (hair is dripping wet and I've had to get changed!) and spin these clean clothes again?! 😡🙄 It's a mixture of heavy rain and hail FFS!

It's not the first time they've predicted it wrongly and I've been caught out, and I'm pissed off. Is there another weather company that's better? Fed up of their website and the actual weather outside my window being completely different ☹️

Met office are useless! I gave up a long time ago, I mostly use the app dark sky which generally tends to be pretty spot on to be honest.

Thanks @Jagley I'll give that a try 🙂

Of course, since I've respun it and pegged the lot on an airer next to a radiator, it's now sunny and breezy...perfect drying weather 🙄 Arse!

I use the Rain Today satellite webpage which often has the little showers that Met Office etc miss. You can see the rainclouds on their way in to you as well as it has a rolling feed every 15 minutes or so
www.raintoday.co.uk/mobile
I'm a bit obsessed with weather sites but we have no tumble dryer so I hang clothes out to dry all year round

Rainfall Radar here:

www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/observation/rainfall-radar

Thanks @timtam23, I'll check that out 🙂

@Daftasabroom, thing is I checked the observation map for rainfall in my location, and it's not even showing the same as my area on the observation one you've linked. It's supposedly the same map so it's madness that it's different Bloomin' Met Office 🙄😆

@CandidaAlbicans2 you might need to refresh it. What I do is wind it back an hour or so and press play, you can see the showers developing and get a good feel for their timing. We're just about to hang washing out now based on a bit of blue just passing.

It’s not a 5% probability of rain for your location, it’s that 5% of the forecast area for that location will see rain! And today, you were in the lucky 5% lol.

I use Rain Today like others, that gives a good metric for what happened rather than an accurate forecast (but you can kinda guess where the rain is heading, direction values, how much rain is heading your way) but predicting precise forecasts for your postcode will always be subject to the local topography, micro climate etc.

The Met Office, Wettercentrale, The Weather Outlook & The Weather Channel (where iPhone forecasts are generated) are all far better than the BBC’s MeteoGroup forecasts (yes, Rain Today is MeteoGroup, but that’s the rain that has happened in 15min chunks based on radar, not a forecast of what will happen, and you can see if anything big is roughly heading your way). Since the MetOffice lost the BBC contract, the BBC weather app is as reliable as licking one finger & sticking it in the air lol.

But that is a whole other thing that makes me rant at the moon lol.

It’s not a 5% probability of rain for your location, it’s that 5% of the forecast area for that location will see rain! And today, you were in the lucky 5% lol.

But is that not the same thing though? If 5% of the area gets rained on, then there's a 5% chance you're in that area, so 5% chance of rain? There's every chance I could be being a bit thick about this though!!

Other way round here, 95% chamce of heavy rain forecast, so we cancelled our NT booking for this afternoon yesterday. It was torrential first thing but been sunny and breezy since about 9. So we have got washing on the line.

It’s not a 5% probability of rain for your location, it’s that 5% of the forecast area for that location will see rain! And today, you were in the lucky 5% lol.

I didn't know this!

But was going to say OP 5% chance doesn't mean 0 chance

I tend to watch the animals. If the sheep are sheltering i know bad weather is on the way.
Plus. Watch the clouds on the mountains. I understand their colours so know when not to peg the clothesline out.

The official line on from somebody at the Met Office:

“ In weather forecasting, suppose the Met Office says that the probability of rain tomorrow in your region is 80%. They aren't saying that it will rain in 80% of the land area of your region, and not rain in the other 20%. Nor are they saying it will rain for 80% of the time. What they are saying is there is an 80% chance of rain occurring at any one place in the region, such as in your garden.

www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/what/accuracy-and-trust/probability

Met Office is more accurate than BBC for my area.

I use the BBC Weather app, which seems to be pretty good for my area. I also don't dry washing outside after mid-October though, for the very reason that it's a nightmare to get dry once it's been rained on!

I really miss my old neighbour for this, I had no idea how she did it but if her laundry was out you could guarantee you'd get it dried if you put yours out. It could be the most lovely morning but if she didn't put anything out you could guarantee the heavens would be open within an hour or so. She was spookily accurate. I look at Netweather but confess that once it gets to October I tend to use the dryer.

@Jagley

Met office are useless! I gave up a long time ago, I mostly use the app dark sky which generally tends to be pretty spot on to be honest.

Was about to recommend the same app. Great for very short term forecasting

I use Carrot. It's accurate and sweary. A quick glance of my watch and it says 'Ha Ha Ha Ha It's Raining'. Other gems include 'I killed a hipster today and floated his body down the river, now he's mainstream' and 'The suns asleep, lets get drunk and order hookers'.
It also does speech so be wary of this function as accidentally tapping it and it shouting 'Fuck me it's cold' doesn't always go down well in Aldi.