On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 9:20:16 AM UTC+1, Norman Lynagh wrote:
wrote:

I know this has been raised before but it is driving me to
distraction. I am referring to the discrepancies between the met
office regional text forecasts and the local graphical forecasts. I
can understand small differences but half the time they are so
completely different as to make the site useless. This has been a
running sore for as long as I can remember. It is particularly absurd
for south east England which has little local variation and so even
less excuse for such grotesquely large discrepancies. Infuriating.
Just to take a small example, I am trying to plan which day to work
on our allotment. Text forecast for Saturday “mainly sunny”.
Graphical forecast for Hampstead cloud icons all day and not a single
sun icon. Hopeless.

I know the feeling, David! Regional text forecasts are generated by
human forecasters. The site-specific forecasts are computer-generated
with no human input i.e. they are raw computer output which, in my
opinion, is not sufficiently reliable to be offered as end-user
material. In other words they are not fit for purpose.

--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.
https://peakdistrictweather.org
twitter: @TideswellWeathr

This thread isn't good for my blood pressure. I mean why do the 5 day forecasts even exist, they haven't a clue of the current weather half the time! Being stuck in a thunderstorm when most of Cornwall & SW Devon was wet and the forecast was still 5% rain didn't amuse me. I mean, is there no input from real weather?

Currently the forecast has been for a cloudy day 1 or 2 days off for days, still waiting. When I went to bed last night there was a 40% chance of rain at 09:00. Another beautiful morning https://www.aspects-holidays.co.uk/webcams/mousehole Sun's currently due to come out 14:00, just had coffee sitting in the sunshine in the garden. OK it's cloudy elsewhere, but that's irrelevant for a postcode forecast. NO point having a post code forecast unless there is the ability & interest to do it properly.

AND as for the forecasters, how often do you hear them say (for the SW anywhere) sun to the lee of high ground, when 9 times out of 10 it's the reverse. Even in a moist SW airflow beaches are often bright, the thicker cloud developing as the air is forced up over the cliffs & moors. Over the year windward coasts are the sunniest, in summer windward coasts are hugely sunnier than other parts. Just look at the MetO average monthly sunshine maps. The sunniest spots being places like the Lands End peninsula, & towards Portland, both to the lee of high ground I assume.

AND as their geographical knowledge, in one recent text part for the SW "Most parts with see good spells of sunshine but it may be cloudier in Devon, Cornwall & parts of Somerset."

AND as for giving Camborne as 'recent' weather for Penzance when they are on opposite coasts and frequently have very different weather & up to 10C on occasion during late Spring early Summer.

AND why give a choice of 3 different forecasts when you type in Sennen (Sennen, Sennen Cove & Sennen Cove (Beach)) when a forecast for Sennen doesn't exist

AND . . . NO surf, not that it matters!

That's better!

Graham
Penzance