Which weather sites do you use?

[monkey_coral]

Just checked the BBC weather page, which informs me that it will be cloudy ALL night.

In the vain hope that they are wrong, which weather sites do you use to plan your observations?

[shaunster]

BBC? thats a just a 50% guess...

I just use sat 24 now and see for myself what cloud is on the way..

[focaldepth]

Sites I have picked up from here on SGL are:

BBC

Metoffice

Metcheck

7Timer

What I do is check all 4 and if they all agree it will be clear, then I don't bother trying to use the scope.

But seriously they all give different predictions but all seem somewhere close, given our small island chaotic weather.

In a non scientific test I think 7timer followed by BBC are the best. (even though I think the BBC get their data from the Metoffice).

Don't bother looking beyond tonight though, things change too often.

[ZEbbEDY]

http://sat24.com/en/gb

and 7timer

[Cosmin]

I found accuweather to be pretty accurate:

AccuWeather.com - United Kingdom | London Weather

[Capricorn]

Usually glance at the BBC and Metcheck, then I open the door and look out of that.

Usually the door is the most accurate for where I am.

[Adamski]

Hi, I use google earth and click the weather box in the layers section on the bottom right of the screen, this gives a real time satelite image of the cloud cover. Looking outside at the direction the clouds are moving enables you to see whats ahead. Or if you take note of their position and go back on google earth 15 mins. later you can determine their path.

[monkey_coral]

Some really useful stuff for me to check here.

As Capricorn said opening the door is always best. However, looking at the reports in advance helps to correctly moderate expectations.

[JamesM]

Sat 24 and a look outside. The Met Office predictions are very unreliable in my opinion.

James

[Jack123456]

To be honest, looking outside can be unreliable too.

The other night, i got up at 1:30 and looked out the window, perfectly clear

then went outside to make sure, still pefectly clear.

I then went in and had a cup of coffee to wake myself up and then went outside to start setting up.

There was a huge cloud come over and it started raining, with flashes of lightning!!!

I had to go back in and watch rubbish on tv as i couldn't go back to sleep!!!

[Stargazer Jack]

I use the predictions in the morning from the met office then in the afternoon/evening I use the met office weather app to look at cloud and rain data I see it is going to clear or come over

[Pete Presland]

sat24 and the met office

[beamer3.6m]

Metcheck, its got an astronomy section.

[space3]

metoffice,

i used to use astroforecast.org but it seems to be gone, it was cool and accurate

[space3]

metoffice,

i used to use astroforecast.org but it seems to be gone, it was cool and accurate:confused:

[Teal Rain]

For me Met Check seem to have the better record than the Met Office / BBC.

Also there's a free account at the NERC Satellite website:

Dundee Satellite Receiving Station

and use the link to MODIS - you'll get a reasonably hi-res RGB image or for a few days ahead the full disk image from Meteosat.

Works for me anyhoo.

M

[smudgeball]

I use Met Check.

Been pretty good recently.

"Mainly Clear" is the annoying one.

"Clear" is normally pretty accurate.

Was REALLY clear here last night till about midnight.

[monkey_coral]

Quite like the look for met check. Don't like what it is telling me though!

[lexyastroman]

I found the bbc site to be ok don't really rely on weather forcasts as weather around my parts is fairly localised it could be raining a few miles away and not a cloud in the sky in other parts... So its a quick look out and hope for the best...

[astro_al]

I use skippysky

[Pitbull]

I have a weather station in my garden which gives me rough predictions and I back thoise up with Metcheck and the Met office.