Where do you get your weather forecast?

[Aron]

Coming from Vic where the weather is volatile I always wonder where people get accurate weather predictions, both for daily use and night use.

I use skippysky or cloudfreenight to track the clouds and Accuweather for the general use but sometimes both are hit and miss..

[Ukastronomer (Jeremy)]

Probably the best one is


https://clearoutside.com/forecast/50.7/-3.52


https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2644107

[Rainmaker (Matt)]

https://www.yr.no/place/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/

[bojan]

http://www.bom.gov.au/index.php

https://www.cloudfreenight.com/map.html
http://skippysky.com.au/Australia/

[N1 (Mirko)]

windy.com
meteoblue.com for seeing predictions outside of Australia, otherwise Skippysky

[LewisM]

After years in aviation, you learn to trust NONE of these witch doctors at all.
I have gone out with forecasts from CFN, YR, BOM and been polar opposite to what was predicted.

So I use Mark 1 eyeball, experience and gut feeling.

[pmrid (Peter)]

The underlying flaw in the question is in the word "accurate". Ain't no such thing. It's all about the different interpretations by different folk of much the same data sets. And as others have said, three weather forecasters in the one room will come up with 4 forecasts, all wrong to some degree. Look out the window and take your chances.

If you're in the bush, long term averages are a help, like the old farmers almanacs and Lennox Walker (et al). But at the end of the day, you're painting with a broad brush at best.

Peter

[sil (Steve)]

meteoblue has been faultless for me for evening predictions. far beyond any other source, plus you can use it with any lat/long not just to the airport in your city.

[alval (Alan)]

I use the BOM satview you can zoom in, see clouds coming, forming and disappearing. Used in reference with latest synoptic chart gives a fair idea of whats coming. Saved the link to my homescreen on my phone, so I check before I leave work to see if I need to plan for a session.
Al

http://satview.bom.gov.au/

[LewisM]

I know some astronomers who have said "Such and such a website said it's gonna be cloudy, so I ain't going"...and I'll go outside and do an all nighter... all it takes is to make an assessment visually, look at the satellite images and make a decision is the cloud coming your way and at what rate.

I have not looked at a "weather forecast" website in a few years, except the BOM to see how bloody cold it is here.

[N1 (Mirko)]

Originally Posted by LewisM

After years in aviation, you learn to trust NONE of these witch doctors at all.
I have gone out with forecasts from CFN, YR, BOM and been polar opposite to what was predicted.

I've seen that happen in our hills too. Forecast said expect arctic conditions, what we got instead was positively antarctic.

[Startrek (Martin)]

I use CFN and only on one occasion this year it was wrong , cloud moved in 3 hours earlier than was forecasted. It’s never been totally wrong
Im sure the accuracy of forecasts have lot to do with where your are located
Most of my observing and AP is done on the coast both in Sydney and the south coast near Ulladulla, so you get a handle on local weather patterns, in particular where your cloud is moving in from and where it’s going etc...during the seasons

I suppose the weather being an ever changing phenomenon you have to give the forecasters a bit of slack from time to time.

[LewisM]

Originally Posted by N1

I've seen that happen in our hills too. Forecast said expect arctic conditions, what we got instead was positively antarctic.

Boom boom

[goober (Doug)]

Originally Posted by alval

I use the BOM satview you can zoom in, see clouds coming, forming and disappearing. Used in reference with latest synoptic chart gives a fair idea of whats coming.

I had the privilege of a tour of the JMA's computer facility in Kiyose earlier in the year. The Himawari satellite display was very impressive - the resolution on their 2 meter display is astonishing.

[N1 (Mirko)]

Originally Posted by alval

I use the BOM satview you can zoom in, see clouds coming, forming and disappearing. Used in reference with latest synoptic chart gives a fair idea of whats coming. Saved the link to my homescreen on my phone, so I check before I leave work to see if I need to plan for a session.
Al

http://satview.bom.gov.au/

Excellent, thanks for sharing!

[sil (Steve)]

https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather...03N147.059340E

use your site lat/long in the url. They are changing their website and have an app but I dont much care for those. This is an old site and for my needs I want to know the cloud cover and with an hour by hour forecast you can see patches clearing etc and like I said for me (not this lat/long) its the most accurate. I only look at clouds as if they aren't clear i dont care how great the seeing index is. Its great to be able to use the exact locations where you want to set up and it uses data from nearest surrounding weather stations to give such an accurate forecast in an out of the way location. good to have some confidence a trip and set up time is worth while . or maybe canberras weather is easy to predict? "after sunset 80% chance of darkness with some reduction of temperature"?

as an aside in the 6months leading up to the last transit of venus I checked every week every weather forecast website I could find to try to find the one with the best longer range forecast and what the weather actually was. I was thinking of possibly travelling at the time if I was confident Canberra was going to be cloudy so I had locations in different directions in driving distance so I could have a confident fallback plan. drive one direction the skies might have gotten worse not better etc.

All my planning all forecasts were off on the day but during that six months the BOM was the most consistent for forecast accuracy. I hadnt encountered meteoblue at the time though. So based on my experimential experience I put my faith in MB followed by BOM. For my needs and weather knowledge Level 0 I'm happy they match what I experience at the time.

[Aron]

Originally Posted by alval

I use the BOM satview you can zoom in, see clouds coming, forming and disappearing. Used in reference with latest synoptic chart gives a fair idea of whats coming. Saved the link to my homescreen on my phone, so I check before I leave work to see if I need to plan for a session.
Al

http://satview.bom.gov.au/

I never thought of that, that's brilliant. I forgot that you can linked it to homescreen!

Also to be fair while it's not always accurate it's a saver when planning to go to a dark site which located quite far.

[Hans Tucker (Hans)]

https://www.bintel.com.au/astronomy-...v=6cc98ba2045f

Seems pretty accurate for the times I have referred to it.

[Symon (Simon)]

Originally Posted by Hans Tucker

https://www.bintel.com.au/astronomy-...v=6cc98ba2045f

Seems pretty accurate for the times I have referred to it.

I was going to say the same
Simon

[ayiana]

Originally Posted by bojan

http://www.bom.gov.au/index.php

https://www.cloudfreenight.com/map.html
http://skippysky.com.au/Australia/

+1 for BOM. Always been my first point of call for the forecast.