AIBU to think the weather forecast could be a little more accurate?

[latrilllis]

The 'live' forecast claims it's sunny right now. That's not the view I get from my window. It's torrential out there . I can see why they can't predict the weather too much in advance, but surely it's possible to tell you in the morning whether it's likely to be sunny or chucking it down before lunchtime?

Our business depends very much on the weather and we learnt long ago that we can't rely on the forecast so YANBU

The forecast that I look at for Liverpool, is quite accurate.

But I've found Wales, where I camp etc hit and miss, so it depends on where you are, I think.

Birdsgottafly, now guess where I am

It's still bucketing it down and I had stuff planned for this morning e.g. collecting a definitely not waterproof parcel from the post office, on foot and a 20 minute walk one way.

Accuweather was more like flakyweather when we were in Cornwall

I am utterly baffled as to why people look at the weather forecast. It is so rarely right.

My friend is a weather scientist. She says it is notoriously difficult to predict weather in the UK, unless it's going to be guaranteed high pressure. Any hint of rain/wind etc and the timings/location/intensity are very difficult to predict due to where we are geographically.

It's easy to predict the weather in Oklahoma for example, far less easy to predict the weather in the UK.

It depends on how close you are to the weather station.

chrome, thanks for the explanation. I know I am a little unreasonable but the weather is getting to me this year. I haven't seen the sun for about a month.

I'm in Lanchashire and the met office has been depressingly accurate!

I think the met office weather forecasts are amazing. The sheer amount of brain that makes sense of all that data is phenomenal. Accuracy of weather forecasts is better than ever.

I would ask the op if she can do better.

nicknamegrief I have family and friends in the Lake District and I also wish the forecast had been wrong.

ReallyTired I guess I could move to somewhere more predictable...

This is my pet hate. I believe that broadcast weather forecasts are deliberately incomprehensible - they don't do the obvious thing which is to say it'll do this in London, that in Birmingham, the other in Newcastle. No, they tell you about the wind, then the rain, then the temperature . Then they tell you what the weather has been like - we know that, you tossers!

It's impossible to predict the weather in the UK more than a few hours ahead with any accuracy, so stop trying to pretend you can.

Rant over.

Where I live the weather is very localised. It can change from sun to fog, from rain to dry, from snow to no snow within very short distances. If I'm out somewhere locally and it's raining I can often predict at what point on the way home it will stop, and judge whether it's worth getting my brolly out. I'm guessing it's because I'm near a river with hills at the back. The forecast might be right for me but not for people a mile away.

Oddly, some people seem to be able to predict the weather. I used to copy my next door neighbour - if she got her washing in there was a 100% chance of it raining in the next hour. We got a tumble dryer after she died because there was no chance of getting anything dry outside without her knowledge.

"I used to copy my next door neighbour - if she got her washing in there was a 100% chance of it raining in the next hour. "

...Really... She is better at predicting the weather than a load of instruments, a network of super computer and some of the smartest minds on the planet.

Its never going to be easy to predict UK whether. Today's weather forcast has been pretty accurate - rain! I doubt that weather forcasts will ever be 100% accurate, its more realistic to have a probablity of rain than to say it will rain at 2pm exactly.

I find the met office website pretty easy to understand. I am surprised that they give forcasts for up to seven days in advance.

She could feel it in her bones, ReallyTired

The live forecasts make me laugh too, I remember being huddled in a car for shelter after the heavens opened on our picnic, the live forecast assured us it was sunny with 0% chance of rain right then!

I can well believe that the next door neighbour was more accurate for the next hour and for that exact location than the met office- after all she could directly observe the cloud formations instead of estimating based on temperature, wind direction, air masses, and extrapolating information based on the nearest observation stations. As has been mentioned, weather can be very localised according to features like hills.

Wether they get it right or wrong, I really wish the local weather studios would at the very least tally with what the national forecast is saying.

The number of times i've watched Carol k telling us it'll be dry across the midlands only to hear, 10 mins later, Midlands Today telling me it's going to chuck it down over the whole region.

Surely one of them aught to think twice?

Read up on the history of weather forecasting and then be utterly amazed at how fantastic the systems we have actually are.

Eponas I've got two weather apps on my phone for my location and they rarely match. I tend to go with the one looking more positive which is why I ended up so annoyed today.

You need to look at the rainfall radar, then you can see if any/ how much rain is heading in your direction. Also good for seeing if there's going to be a gap in the rain later. Since I've started checking with the rainfall radar I can time walking the dogs so I miss a lot of the rain.