Why does the Met Office and BBC forecast differ?

[QuirkyLirky]

Just checking the forecast for my area and there is a difference between the two. Differences in temperature by 2 or 3 degrees and substantial difference in the chance of rain on Wednesday, all using my exact postcode.

I know basically it's extremely hot tomorrow, but a bit cooler on Wednesday, but I'm just a bit curious how they interpret the data to make differing predictions?

They all use different systems and formulas to make predictions. It's as much of an art as it is a science.

BBC use Meteogroup.
Most others use Met Office.

Thank you - for some reason I assumed everyone used the Met Office.

Different meteorological models give different outcomes.

Someone told me this on a thread yesterday, I had no idea they all use different ones

So who has got the official temps from today? My car, my phone and the internet all seemed to have different answers

BBC moved from the MO due to cost. Get onto the Weather topic, loads of info there.

the recorded temps are different from the forecast. they're recorded in specific places where they can get accurate readings and they'll probably be reported later tonight or tomorrow.

They did until quite recently. Then the BBC decided to stop using the met office data.

I follow it quite closely and in my non-professional opinion the met office is far more accurate than the BBC (e.g. is it going to rain, shall I bring my washing in?)

The Met Office themselves is, imo, the best source for weather.
I follow them on Twitter and YouTube and use their website.

As well as using a different forecasting service, some BBC forecasts especially on tv seem to be recorded earlier, especially at weekends. So can be several hours out of date.

I have been wondering the same thing. For the same time tomorrow bbc says ‘feels like temp 42’ compared with met office ‘feels like temp 35’ that’s a massive difference!

From what I can see the max temp today was 36? Near Cambridge and other areas.

Not sure if that is accurate, I think that was on the met office website but Im not quite sure if I was looking at the right thing

Official temps on this thread. www.mumsnet.com/talk/weather/4590238-met-office-red-warning-for-extreme-heat

The met office use their own forecasting model to predict the weather. The BBC get their forecast from meteogroup who use outputs from the met office model, the European medium range model and an American model. All models use data from weather stations etc as the starting point and from there make calculations to figure out what could happen, but even weather observations can be a bit off/lack detail so sometimes the model results are way off, especially the longer ahead the forecast runs as more changes pile on bad data and the whole thing goes wonky.

Everyone keeps updating their forecasts so the closer it gets to the time the more accurate it is likely to be. Within 6 hours the forecast is usually pretty good (the met office one).

You can see local weather records if you look at maps from Davis or netamo, which give you the reading from home weather stations. Netamo can often be too high on the temperature tho, as the sensor isn't shaded as well as it should be. Data from the met office weather stations is available via their website but the stations can be quite far apart.

Thank you, everyone. I didn't realise there was a weather topic. Just been over there and it's fascinating. 😀

@QuirkyLirky would you mind asking mn if this thread could be ported over to Weather please? There is some great info on this thread and it would mean that info is preserved.