Why are the Met and BBC weather forecasts so different?

[getwiththeprogram]

According to the BBC there's a 40-50% chance of rain all day where I am and only 21 degrees. According to the Met it's a 20% chance of rain and 25 degrees.

Who do I believe?

my Understanding is that the met office are the original source - other people pull from them.
that doesn’t explain why it’s different
but the bbc does not have its own weather equipment and professionals who do the analysis

Because they both use different weather models for forecasting

The BBC don't use the Met Office these days, I think they switched to an EU based company.

I find the Met Office much more reliable.

Always believe Met Office! BBC is very pessimistic, always believing it will rain. I find they're rarely correct.

The BBC weather forecast seems to forecast rain so much more than the Met one. I look at both and then get confused whether to wear a raincoat or not!

I always go with the met Office as they are gathering their own data. They always seem to be more accurate as well.

The BBC completely failed to predict the thunderstorms yesterday. DH had to run out at 5am to save some stuff that we didn't want rained on.

I always choose to believe the website which is forecasting the weather I want.

This is my absolute favorite place to watch an incoming thunderstorm . . . https://map.blitzortung.org/#2.14/44.52/-10.21

Bbc over estimate rain and under estimate temperature. The best website will depend slightly on who has the best equipment in the area you live. Lots of farmers swear by metcheck.com.

😄yes I tend to do this too

BBC weather is so inaccurate it’s laughable! We never use it in our house. The one we rely on is the one that came with our iPhones.

I used to have the BBC app for the weather, but I didn't find it very accurate. I have the Met office now and I find it is accurate.

I think I read somewhere that the %s are just what different runs of the model say. So in one, 20% of the times the simulation was run it rained in that particular spot, and in 80% it might have been a mile down the road or the cloud didn't break or whatever. In the other the rain hit that spot in 40% of the simulations. Predicting exactly how fast clouds travel, in exactly what direction, and where and when a cloud full of rain will start raining is quite tricky I imagine, the whole system is mathematically chaotic or something.

Oh no now there's a third forecast to add to the confusion!

This one does look more aligned to Met than the BBC though.

I find this with Apple weather and the Met too. Apple used to be reliable but the Met is better now. Apple is confusing because it will say e.g. 60% rain then you look at the hour-by-hour and it’s 1mm for one hour at 11pm. There is currently 5° difference in today’s predicted temperature between Apple and the Met. Apple always says it’s colder than it is. Basically I don’t know the answer 😂 but I spend a lot of time outside and can’t deal with heat so it’s annoying

I use AccuWeather and they’re rarely wrong - I work outdoors and with animals so need to be able to know the temperatures and wind speeds etc.

MetOffice are probably the next best option and I ignore BBC completely.

Team Met Office.

I’m not a meteorologist, but I use weather data professionally. We use Met Office data, and are very closely aligned to them.

Weather forecasting is a bit of a black art, and long established models no longer fit the climate. There are 8 variables that meteorologists look at to predict the weather; time was 5 or 6 of them would agree, and the forecast was based on that. These days, as weather is changing, there is less agreement, and forecasting is much harder.

The Met Office forecast the mostly likely scenario; others will go for Realistic Worst Case or Best Case.

A meteorologist once told me that the statistically most accurate forecast is “same as it was today” but that misses the big changes, which is what people want to know.

Which ran an article recently on the accuracy of them. The most accurate was The Weather Channel, then AccuWeather, Met Office, Apple weather, BBC
I think the BBC used to use the met office and changed to ?Meteo. I believe they are changing back when the contract runs out.

Exactly the one I use. Their minutecast to predict rain is always accurate for me, I can time bringing my washing in to it.

The majority seem to agree that the BBC is a bit rubbish, so I will count on Met (easy to read website) and go to AccuWeather if need be.

The Weather Channel is fahrenheit which my brain won't compute so I'll bypass that.

Thanks for the input all. Very useful.

I think that's just a setting you can adjust in the app. Mine is in C.