What is the point of weather forecasts ?

Usually I never look at the forecast, and if I happen upon it, I don’t believe it – however, since our planned ride for Sunday was Helvellyn, I had a look and basically it said the weekend in the Lakes would be awful with blizzards on Sunday. Needless to say it was remarkably wrong. Glorious blue sunny sky on Saturday, and some occasional windy showers and later hail on Sunday.

Wouldn’t we be better using rabbits’ paws and seaweed and just looking out of the window ?

Helen Willets mate

Was there someone on here a while back, who was obsessed with Helen Willets being pregnant?

Weather forecasting… all that money on technology, and they still can’t get it right. About as trustworthy as betting tips.

They’d be better off, just saying ‘look, it might rain, it might not. So take appropriate clothing with you. And being that’s it’s January, It’ll probably be quite chilly.’

Hmm, pity I’m not Scandinavian and pretty, or I could have a lucrative career ahead of me…

SFB – based on the forecast I promised ‘Her Ladyship’ that I’d do all the ‘little’ DIY jobs she’d been nattering about over the last few months – then it turned out nice!! The commute into work this morning was p155ing awful – life, eh?

Agreed. I sacked off my first MTB ride of the year because of it. Still, managed to get three hours on the road bike in the morning as some small payment for their monumental inaccuracy.

Helen Willets mate

we could just have pretty ladies showing us their holiday slides or whatever instead :o)

The point of weather forecasts is schadenfreude

The point of weather forecasts is schadenfreude

I’m fully aware of "weather schadenfreude" (enjoying other people getting wet &/or cold), but it needs to be based on real experience not fantasy

Mountain weather forecasting more than a couple of days in advance is pretty much guesswork. Mountain weather forecasting for a specific location is next to impossible.

It’s the mountains, in January, prepare for it to be cold and wet, if you don’t get that, be happy

We’ll see today – apparently there’s unbroken sunshine up here by 15.00. At the moment it’s snowing:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/24hr.shtml?world=0341

Weather forecasts give Daily Mail readers another topic of conversation / hysteria.

Only last week I was talking to someone and they were going on about ‘Wintery Showers’ being forecast for the weekend and how that meant no one would be able to go out anywhere, etc. FFS was all I could think.

Oh, and I hate this weather symbol.

Well thats just a vague guess covering all options isn’t it!

Oh, and I hate this weather symbol.

Well thats just a vague guess covering all options isn’t it!

Pretty much sums up the British weather though.

Are you looking at the BBC weather forecast ? Like this ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?id=1769

Basically this gives the worst possible weather for the day, as people tend to complain more is the weather is worse than predicted rather than better.

So basically the weather forecast was saying it was going to be worse on Sunday than Saturday which it was.

Theres only so much data that can be contained in a single symbol !

You might be better off looking at something like this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ukweather/

Again it doesnt predict the weather perfectly but it does give you some ideas of when rain fronts are going to cross the country and how big / long they will last.

Learn to forcast your own using the raw data from the Met Office.

The rainfall radar is the best thing. It shows where it’s actually raining NOW and where and how fast it’s been moving in the last 12 hours, so you can track it precisely and forcast when it’ll hit you, or not, as the case may be!

🙂

The rainfall radar is the best thing.

except it often says it’s raining here when it isn’t, or vice versa 🙁

How about using a ouija board made from an old barometer and varnished with seaweed juice ?

"Weather forecasting… all that money on technology, and they still can’t get it right. About as trustworthy as betting tips"

Ha! Not in other places in the world..spot on, always is..

Not in other places in the world..spot on, always is..

but I only care about the weather here

If you’re riding Scotland, Cumbria, Lakes or Peaks, try MWIS MWIS. It is very specifically for walkers/bikers and gives stuff like visibility, wind speed direction etc. I’ve found its invariably 10 times more accurate that other forecasts

Professor John Ashton seem to think weather forecasts should have a legal basis (though he appears to be ignorant about lots of other things as well).