Anyone else think the BBC weather is a bit rubbish now?

After being away in Sweden for two years I am trying to use the BBC weather and it just seems to fancy for its own good. It looks like it is going to be really accurate but it is not. What happened to the nice clear symbols showing say sun/rain or sun/cloud.

yeah i used to occasionally check the five day forecast on there, despite the fact that it’s generally bollocks. now i can’t even be bothered to try to find it – it’s so poorly presented.

It’s terrible, nearly as bad as their ridiculous TV presentation with the country slanted to make Surrey appear bigger than Scotland.

metcheck.com is much more useful

BBC is usually accurate for conditions but a few hours adrift on time. Anything more then 24 hours in advance is generally pretty unreliable too.

Metcheck’s calculation of “real feel” is rubbish, and the fact that their weather forecasts go as far as a month in advance is just silly IMO. You might as well try and predict the second coming of Jesus.

accuweather is pretty good too. Also has the bonus of having one Joe Bastardi reporting on extreme weather:)

nearly as bad as their ridiculous TV presentation with the country slanted to make Surrey appear bigger than Scotland.

It’s called PERSPECTIVE[/b]

I use http://www.ukweather.com since the BBC web one went crap

accuweather is really accurate! NOT. Its thunder and lightning here in Manchester and that shows glorious sunshine!!

It’s called PERSPECTIVE

It certainly does reflect the BBC’s southern perspective.

The actual weather here seems to be a bit crap today.

It certainly does reflect the BBC’s southern perspective.

That’s what you want to see. But its because the map is shown with NORTH at the top. It would look strange the other way up eh?

(Sorry, I’ve got thing about this silly complaint, because a Scottish hubby of a friend went on about it. He lives in Winchester ffs!!)

I’ve found that the BBC’s forecast is ok so long as you take it that it’s always the most pessimistic view possible – eg if it shows rain, it may well rain but it may well not but if it shows sun then you can be reasonably condfident that it will stay dry.

BBC online is very poor. Try mwis[/url]. If there is no forecast applicable to you then unfortunately you’ve moved back to somewhere rubbish. 😉

BBC weather presentations went pretty crap some years ago when they removed pressure and wind information, and invented something previously unheard of called a “weather front”. Personally I take little notice of BBC forecasts, there is much more useful data about these days.

For some good links take a look at Sailplane (Gliding) websites. There is plenty of stuff here for example which will lead you on to bigger and better stuff:
http://glidemet.co.uk/

its because the map is shown with NORTH at the top. It would look strange the other way up eh?

If it’s a map, it shouldn’t be skewed. If it’s a “3d” perspective flyover, you could do it from any direction, the camera should fly around and come back north to south looking south.

What is actually is, is a wrong and misleading map. It really irritates me and Sheffield isn’t even very far north (you might think it is, from the BBC’s “map”, but it’s not). If I was Scottish I’m sure I’d hate it even more.

google “met office ‘your town'” and add bookmark!

and yea, the ‘3d’ map is crap!

I use this for up to 8 days
http://www.stronge.org.uk/charts.html
see pressure and cloud cover at the bottom

This for upto next 48 hours
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/satpics/latest_uk_vis.html
use Rainfall radar, observation and then forecasts links

…and http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/10209 for animations, though are harder to use nowadays.

To get a decent forecast you have to pull all the stuff together yourself over a period of hours and days ahead. Careful use of the Met Office rainfall radar can really make the difference in not getting piss wet through, choosing a route and time of ride.
Paul

Since remodelling the BBC site they have hidden the isobar chart which is the most useful one – its still there just hard to find.

I am glad I am not alone.

People are bothered about the BBC weather map because it makes Scotland/North look smaller than the south?

BBC forecasting is mile off the mark at the moment – is the department on holiday?

Mostly use Accuweather and the Met office mountain forecasts to really know whats likely

If it’s a map, it shouldn’t be skewed. If it’s a “3d” perspective flyover, you could do it from any direction, the camera should fly around and come back north to south looking south.

What is actually is, is a wrong and misleading map. It really irritates me and Sheffield isn’t even very far north (you might think it is, from the BBC’s “map”, but it’s not). If I was Scottish I’m sure I’d hate it even more.

The vast majority of maps are skewed because they try to flatten the curvature of the Earth. Google map is terrible as it shows Greenland as larger than Africa ffs.

My problem with BBC weather is the lack of isobars. At least with them you can predict the weather yourself, or build in a bit of ‘play’ around their predictions.

l always used to use the bbc weather site, but since i moved
(2 yrs ago) it has become rubbish. too fancy, and no longer easy to use..

My problem with BBC weather is the lack of isobars. At least with them you can predict the weather yourself, or build in a bit of ‘play’ around their predictions.

Find the Europe – West maps and animations. That has isobars.

Paul

Since remodelling the BBC site they have hidden the isobar chart which is the most useful one – its still there just hard to find.

Where is it TJ? Weather forecasts useless without one.

GEDA – Your right it is C R A P these days 🙂

Ah, weatherperson, the only job where you can get it wrong day after day and still keep your job. Think i need to be forecasting more in my job and see if i still have it after getting it wrong day after day

stuartie – go to UK weather / maps/ pressure – however its down at the moment.

No quick links from the forecast pages now

porterclough – Member

its because the map is shown with NORTH at the top. It would look strange the other way up eh?

If it’s a map, it shouldn’t be skewed. If it’s a “3d” perspective flyover, you could do it from any direction, the camera should fly around and come back north to south looking south.

What is actually is, is a wrong and misleading map. It really irritates me and Sheffield isn’t even very far north (you might think it is, from the BBC’s “map”, but it’s not). If I was Scottish I’m sure I’d hate it even more.

I am Scots, living in Yorkshire. I find it funny. Useless as a map, but funny. In fact the whole BBC weather set up is a huge joke (did no one notice that they changed to the new look on April 1st – STW FACT*).

The best joke that the BBC paly is that their internet waether site and the (digital) teletext weather often disagree. The BBC PDA weather site is not too bad.

*STW facts may or may not bear resemblence to actaul events, people or places.

I use lookoutthewindow.com

no, just that high pressures are notoriously hard to model.

A low will just move fronts accross the country, in a fairly regular way, very easy to model, even a 5 year old could probably guess the next days weather (just spin the low arround roughly the same as it did the day before).

Highs tend to sit there, untill all of a sudden they become too unstable and just fall apart.

If you looked back at the “metoffice/bbc/metcheck is crap” threads, i’d be supprised if they didnt corrlate fairly well with high pressure systems.

go buy some meterology textbooks, a lot of maps and start predicting your own weather if it bothers you, its actualy quite fun, especialy when you can tell your ridiing buddies its going to rain in 10 min time, despite the sunshine 🙂

I am not saying the reporting is rubbish I am saying the format and layout is rubbish.

Stuartie:

http://meteonet.nl/aktueel/brackall.htm

apprently the people who came up with the 3d map nonsence approached itv who took one look at it and told them it was rubbish! they then went to the bbc who lapped it up (why!?)

its so cr@p it your not paying attention during the two seconds they zoom over where you live the whole broadcast is rubbish.

and another more important thing is theres always that flippin bloke doing
it. there was a time when some channels had a few hottie presenting it.sean lloyd (if im correct)on itv werent to bad from a distant memory…

Another vote for c r a p. Really annoys me now plus I can’t even see the interactive map thing on my work pc.

I use Metcheck, its pretty good

metcheck

This is annoying. I was going to ride a new route around Nan Bield/Kentmere today but two of the websites show heavy rain this afternoon. I ‘can’ go the wrong way a couple of times and really its not worth the idiot-risk on a first time route 🙁
It’ll have to wait until local mateys back from his hols 🙂

I use Metcheck and WeatherPro on my phone. WeatherPro has satellite and radar maps as well. On Thursday I checked the weather for Bristol as I was going there to see the Banksy exhibition. WeatherPro showed rain at 1600 – I came out of the building at 1615 to find it was peeing down and had been for around ten minutes. I was impressed, anyway.

BBC is rubbish now. WHY did they ruin it?

I find windguru very good its for kite surfers obviously bloody useless if you live in Brum but it works for me as I am only a few minutes from Ainsdale beach one of the top wind surfing and kite buggying spots in the country. So its usually bob on for me.

http://www.windguru.com/int/index.php?sc=1064

I find this to be fairly accurate………….combined with met-check and a good ole look out of the window!!

Met Office Weather