Weather forecasts

Graham

Thru Hiker
How reliable for planning purposes do you think the Met Office Mountain Weather, MWIS or other UK forecasts are? In particular, their reliability 24-48 hours ahead when the weather is changeable. Any particular stories to relate?
 

Munro277

Thru Hiker
How reliable for planning purposes do you think the Met Office Mountain Weather, MWIS or other UK forecasts are? In particular, their reliability 24-48 hours ahead when the weather is changeable. Any particular stories to relate?
YES after much desperate searching i though yesterday might not be too bad wet too start then heavy snow,no probs,then clearing and dropping in temp..worse winds i saw forcast were 25 perhaps gusts 35 mph ..now sadly my wind metor froze up but from experince i can happily ! say winds from Buck pike over too Dow crag and down to coll back of old man were at times in excess off 75+ mph with a constant id say 30-40 wind ......WEATHER IT IS WHAT IT IS WHEN YOUR ON THE HILL
 

Teepee

Thru Hiker
It all depends on the synoptics. This weekend was a good example of why even short range forecasting can be tricky. Large low pressure systems like we have at the moment will always come with uncertainty, as small movements in their track can have large effects.

Accuracy of forecasts at 1-2 days from the meto runs at well over 90% verification, as do many of the Numerical Weather Prediction models used to generate the forcasts. Not too shabby IMO.

I find that if the Meto and MWIS agree, the forecast is pretty much nailed. When they disagree, I use a blend of the 2. MWIS have better specialist knowledge of mountain conditions I believe.

Things are improving all the time. Newer forecasting computers off ever higher resolution and the promise of being able to model single km cells in the not too distant future, whereas now they use multi km cells.
 

Graham

Thru Hiker
Fairly good re. weather - not so good on timing
Agreed. When you can't get reception to see the latest forecast and are relying on your own weather eye, that's when I've been caught out on a few occasions by the timing of storms. Most memorable (from my walk log) was 6/7 November, 2008 - Glyders, Ygarn and Elidir Fawr summit camp.
 

Graham

Thru Hiker
It all depends on the synoptics. This weekend was a good example of why even short range forecasting can be tricky. Large low pressure systems like we have at the moment will always come with uncertainty, as small movements in their track can have large effects.

Accuracy of forecasts at 1-2 days from the meto runs at well over 90% verification, as do many of the Numerical Weather Prediction models used to generate the forcasts. Not too shabby IMO.

I find that if the Meto and MWIS agree, the forecast is pretty much nailed. When they disagree, I use a blend of the 2. MWIS have better specialist knowledge of mountain conditions I believe.

Things are improving all the time. Newer forecasting computers off ever higher resolution and the promise of being able to model single km cells in the not too distant future, whereas now they use multi km cells.

I use a very similar approach to yourself Pete in doing an arbitrage between MWIS (agree on their expertise) and Met Office Mountain Weather. I also watch the Surface Pressure Charts (the animation gives some idea of the timing of approaching fronts and troughs). All three sources are published at different times, although presumably rely on the same base observation data?

I'm sceptical about the quoted 90% accuracy. The weather in the SE of England is usually easy to forecast compared to say the NW and the statistic presumably includes periods of relative benign weather when a default forecast of 'tomorrow will be like today' works pretty well. Recently, the synoptics have been incredibly complex even by UK standards - the science is complex and very interesting.
 

Teepee

Thru Hiker
I don't know which models MWIS use and whether they pay for access to premium models from the Meto but they will use a large amount of info common to both. The observational data is largely the same, provided by balloons, ocean bouys, stations, plane sensors, satellites etc.

All of the models are actually analyzed daily for verification. It's a forecasters tool and its important to know how accurate they are. Very easy to check too with the observations being fed in daily, the output is just compared to observations. They all slip up from time to time though.

Yes, very interesting. I find it all fascinating. :) There's so much information out there now, and provided for free. It's a great resource.
 

el manana

Thru Hiker
The main one i follow is MWIS and then metcheck hobbies mountain weather. I sometimes find MWIS err on the side of caution and forecasts can be a fair bit worse than actual.
 

Mole

Thru Hiker
metcheck is owned/run by a guy down this way.
Google him, and you may decide whether or not to use the site....
 

Creamy

Section Hiker
IMO

MWIS is pretty good but I think sometimes errs on caution which perhaps isn't a bad thing. I combine that with general met office forecasts as well as having a nose at a synoptic chart still these days to try understand what's being predicted and why
Once out there keeping an eye on tell tail signs of weather deterioration. Or improvement!
Fascinating stuff
 

Creamy

Section Hiker
metcheck is owned/run by a guy down this way.
Google him, and you may decide whether or not to use the site....

Metcheck is used a fair bit by airsports activists. I believe said person is into a bit. Please correct me otherwise. Is it definitely him that the alleged offences are linked with.
Wheres down this way Mole?
 

Graham

Thru Hiker
Not forgetting the spirited efforts of the Fell Assessors, to factor in to the forecast.

Todays update for the Lake District (report for 23/12/2015) read: "In the storm force winds, which almost reached 80mph, the assessor was reduced to crawling, and at one point couldn't move because of the wind for almost 10 minutes". :):)

I love a bit of Fell Crawling - elemental or mental, not sure which;)
 
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