Allotments 4 All

Which weather forecast do you find most accurate?

The BBC and Met office both say this week the minimum nighttime temperature will be in double figures.

But Metcheck says it will get down below 5.

Which to believe?

If it's the former I can plant out my tender veg, but if the latter...

Hi! I got these useful replies a few weeks ago & have been trying some of the others since...

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,60229.0.html

Thanks for that Ollie. I shall explore some of the other sites and see which one I like best.

Metchecks recent forecasts of over 400mph wind and daytime being colder than night should've been enough to put me off, but I'm a creature of habbit!

You can try the links in the top tool bar here http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Indexes/index.htm At least you can personalise them and compare with surrounding areas.

I find the BBC online weather forecast to be ok for the next 24-hours. It is pretty crap over any greater period though. But in real terms I don't tend to be away much so can respond to weather on a daily basis. The online stuff seems to be more accurate than the TV broadcasts as you can pin-point your exact postcode rather than a whole county. We are near a river and that has an effect too, so what is happening here is not always what is happening two miles up the road.

To be honest, if I want a longer range forecast I look at about 8 different sources and try to pic the common themes. They can be wildly different and sometime NONE of them get it right! I have 6 iPhone apps just for weather forecasting.

I think the BBC uses the Met Office data and am constantly amused that the two can disagree. I guess that have different meteorologists who interpret the data differently.

I've always said that they should not call them forecasts but a more accurate term would be 'predictions' or 'best guess' (when I'm feeling mean). There are some things you can forecast with a degree of certainty, like progression of a disease or how long it will take to cook a cake of known ingredients and weight at a given temperature, but weather is so complicated that all we can ever hope for is a prediction based on data know at the time it is cast. And it seems that if a butterfly farts in New York, that can turn our predicted barbecue summer into a washout!

Where's my seaweed, barometer and fir cones...?

There was an experiment run once comparing three methods of forecasting tomorrow's weather.
1 The BBC wather forecast
2 Old wives tales ( cows lying down etc)

and 3, the most likely to be correct



It will be the same as today.

Having used half a dozen weather site in the last two years i can tell you


1. The Met Office cant even tell tomorrows weather with any certainty, let alone anything about global warming in 50 years

2. PWS is spot on but you have to pay, its subscription only

3. the most accurate free sites to date in my view are:

http://uk.weather.com/weather/10day-Lincoln-UKXX1087

http://www.wunderground.com/global/UK.html


another useful one here shows the position of the jet stream

http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/jetstream.asp

8th/9th June might be cold, because the jet stream drops south of us, leaving us trapped in colder air from the north.