Weather forecast website?

[ThunderStorm]

Sorry if this sort of threads had appeared many times before.
I would like to check if the sky will be cloudy or clear on Fri, Sat or Sun night if possible?

Thanks

[cfn]

Forecast for Sydney (http://www.cloudfreenight.com/meteogram.bookmark&city=Sydney)

[ThunderStorm]

Thanks.

Should I look at the GFS(Cloud) or Access(Cloud) only or both?
So the lower the Cloud Cover (%) the better?

[cfn]

ACCESS-R for short term.
Correct.

[ThunderStorm]

Thanks

[deanm]

SkippySky is an old favourite:


(http://www.skippysky.com.au/Australia/)

Bear in mind that predictions out beyond 24 hours are pretty 'iffy' & become exponentially unreliable with increasing time for prediction.

Dean

[Phil Hart]

You might like to read through this thread also.. the original launch thread:

Cloud Free Night – new Australian weather forecast website (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=143413)

Phil

[johngwheeler]

I like "Clear Outside" (clearoutside.com). There is also a good free mobile app for it.

yr.no is a Norwegian weather site that uses European weather satellites (that also cover Australia!), and gives good hour-by-hour cloud cover figures.

Accuweather.com has a view specifically for Astronomy, but only has an average figure of cloud cover for the night, and can be a bit hit and miss.

Weatherzone.com is also a site that has cloud cover figures for 3-hour slots.

In reality none of them are 100% accurate and I have had a couple of frustrating nights where is was supposed to completely clear and was in fact quite cloudy. As you know, conditions on the East Coast of Australia can change very quickly, so I guess it's a challenge.

You might also look at the Bureau of Meteorology's own web site (bom.gov.au) and look at the cloud radars. They have visible and IR views, which is handy for nighttime.

HTH,

John.

[poncho]

Second clear outside app on your phone! I use it to predict 1 week out if theres clear nights, straightforward to use!

[GTB_an_Owl]

and don't forget 7Timer

geoff

[multiweb]

Skippy, 7 timer, weather zone, accuweather, clear outside, none of them display the regional ACCESS model. So it doesn't matter how many sites you look at until you're blue in the face, you're still looking at a forecast which is a global forecast, not regional. You're wasting your time.

CFN is currently the only site in Oz that gives you an accurate regional model. If you're located in Australia there's absolutely no point looking anywhere else. Period. :shrug:

Unless you like taking chances but the odds are stacked against you big time. You'll be screaming driving back home under clear skies after packing up or you'll be screaming under the rain 300km from home at a dark site looking at a clear forecast map. Pick your poison. :lol:

Personally I appreciate that when I'm driving over a 1000km from Sydney to Astrofest I'm going to get 5 clear nights. And it delivered, right on time. CFN was the only site giving me the info I needed.

[Phil Hart]

I encourage everybody to check it out Cloud Free Night, and understand what differentiates it from other sites. From our description on CFN (http://www.cloudfreenight.com/):



Your reference to YR.NO though is important. This is the only free service where you can get cloud forecasts for Australian locations based on the European Centre (ECMWF) forecast model (not "satellites"). There are very few even paid options for amateurs to access EC model data.

As I explained at my talk at CWAS Astrofest in Parkes and elsewhere, low clouds especially are very chaotic/dynamic so no weather model is going to get them right, but by looking at highest resolution BoM ACCESS-R model on CloudFreeNight and comparing it quickly and easily to United States GFS forecast (and YR.NO) you'll have the best information you can get.

Looking at another 50 sites that all use freely available US GFS model data is as Marc says fairly pointless, but if you like the way they present the information then don't let me stop you ;).

Phil

[GTB_an_Owl]

Marc
i believe 7Timer forecast is regional

geoff

[multiweb]

nope. as GFS as it gets. :)
But don't take my word for it. Check ACCESS vs. GFS for a couple of week and see what works best for you then let me know.

[Phil Hart]

From 7Timer website:



There are a few subtleties, but US GFS is pretty much the only model where the data is made freely available for anybody to use, even for commercial purposes. That is why anybody round the world can setup a back room weather operation with their own take on the presentation/visualisation of the data.

They will often try to gloss over that, with many sites making broad claims like 'we use the most accurate forecast data available' because saying 'we use the same data as everyone else' isn't very compelling from a marketing point of view but fundamentally the data is the same for pretty much all of them.

Phil