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Where to find a decent weather forecast?


Fidcal

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Tried different weather website over the years but most are cluttered, messy, difficult to get any sensible quick info. Last few months I've been using M$oft who I usually shun. Weather page is clear well presented. Quite happy until yesterday afternoon when I saw the current temperature which they said had been updated 20 minutes before was absurdly wrong and still showed the same temperature as 5:00am - in fact it still stated this was the minimum temperature for the day. If they don't know the weather right now what chance they can predict tomorrow?

 

So, no longer confident I look again at the met office. Cluttered, messy, confusing, hard to navigate (never trust a website that needs a 'site map' because they know nobody can find anything with the normal navigation) but surely reliable?

 

I find some clues about today's weather and a decent verbal summary but I want it in clear format, low, high, current, temperature, wind, rain, etc. See at a glance stuff. Probably in there somewhere but where? And centigrade doesn't mean a lot to me.

 

Here's a classic line...

 

"Your search for farenheit in Met Office found 0 results."

 

Never heard of him. Only 10% of people want farenheit so why should they care about 6.5 million people? What do they know about people? They have meteorology degrees not social studies or psychology.

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I just installed a widget on my desktop (using KDE4), maybe there is such a thing for your windows desktop, too? It uses I think google.

 

The forecasts are sometimes silly (they predict "rain tomorrow and they day after tomorrow" for 3 weeks now, but it only actually rained 3 times. Usually the clouds came and gone :) But it is better than nothing.

 

post-144-127987969225_thumb.jpg

 

The "moon" is another applet that tracks moon phases. And no, it doesn't change the desktop background based on weather, but that would be awesome :)

 

We also have a weather station here, which tracks temperature and so one and also uses some radio to get forecasts (or that is what I think it does, the description is a bit unclear. Some radio tower here in Europe is said to distribute the forecasts but info is scarce.

 

Here is an example:

 

http://www.reichelt.de/?;ACTION=3;LA=3;GROUP=X38;GROUPID=3848;ARTICLE=91694;SID=15Jr-tQKwQAQ8AABS9RLk5ce8eec60b76ec3cda3198ec1cf24a07

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

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Although I don't particularly want an applet on the desktop, that info it gives is just about right - no clutter, no confusion, just the basics and forecast over the next few days. Maybe I'll try software downloads instead of websites. Might find something I can just click and run and it gets the latest from somewhere and displays it like that.

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That google one seems pretty good. I'll try that for a while. I did try google earlier but didn't see that. That's now three googles on my speed dial: advanced search, dictionary, now the weather. They seem to get a lot of things right, customer-friendly and make loadsa money.

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Red next to black is a friend of Jack,

Red next to yellow will kill a fellow

 

ETA:

Oh, btw, though I don't really use it a whole lot beyond the glancing at the whatsonscreenbit, I do have FFplugin forecastfox which has good customizations, and links to accuweather... It never lets me down! except when it's wrong which...

Edited by aidakeeley

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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White/blue absorbs it, you're up in orbit.

White next to black, you're on the moon Jack.

Yellow next to pink, you're on Mars I think.

Grey next to smoke, you're gonna choke.

White next to white, you're in the shite.

Black next to black, no coming back.

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First morning trying Google gives a High of 69F and a low of 59F with a current temperature of 55F.

 

What troubles me is not that I spot the obvious error within 5 seconds of starting to read but that Google doesn't. How can I trust the high forecast if their low is already wrong and they don't even do a sanity test to fix it?

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You realise that every source you try most likely gets their data from the same place, right? :)

 

The high and the low are forecasts, whereas the actual number is real data from the field. That would explain the discrepancy - the forecast was just off (big surprise, I know). From those results, you could infer that the high might also be lower than predicted. If they sanity-checked the data, you'd lose that cue.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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I realize the high and low are forecasts but the low is a wrong forecast (now) isn't it? What I want from a weather service is a forecast for today and the next few days including the highs and lows. Their forecast for today's low is wrong. It should not be a record of yesterday's forecast for today. It is today's forecast and it has not been updated. Suppose it was a forecast made at 3:00am from the latest data coming in. Well they didn't do very well did they? If their forecast for only a few hours ahead was so far out. In any event, since their latest current reading was 55F then they should update their 'forecast'.

 

Are you saying you agree with them? That it is sensible and right for weather forecasters to forecast that today's low will be 59F when it is currently 55F?

 

BTW it is now changed to 60F so there is another interpretation. The forecast might be for the next low today at say one minute to midnight. If so, they are still wrong to display it as a forecast of the lowest temperature for today - "today" being midnight to midnight so today's lowest temperature is likely (but not necessarily) an hour before dawn.

 

The correct 'low' for today is 55F (or less.) Otherwise what will they show for the high when we get to 6pm? Will they then show the high to be the 'next' high because they have alreay passed the real high? No. This is what they should do:

 

First they should forecast the high and low.

As time proceeds they get new readings so should update their predictions.

As they pass those they should freeze them (like a max/min thermometer.)

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Certainly it's not critical that the values are updated in real time when you've demonstrated you can interpret the data as presented. That's the point behind forecasts. You're supposed to interpret them.

 

Have you ever played with wolframalpha? You might be able to fudge some kind of query together that gives you what you want but one has to wonder at what point you figure it's more effort than working it out in your head.

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I like metcheck. Nicely laid out, really clear and you have long-range forecasts (up to 2 weeks, and they seem to be fairly spot on) which is perfect for planning whether to take your wellies to Glastonbury ;)

"We were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign — and no memories" - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

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