UKC

In the past I've always relied on MWIS but I do find the MWIS forecast does tend to let me down sometimes these days. In particular, a recent occasion when MWIS said the freezing level in the Cairngorms was going to be 850m but in actual fact it was somewhat tropical on the platea at 1,100m! I am wondering, what are people's experiences of the reliability of different mountain forecasts available; particularly the following:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/mountain-forecasts/east-highland...
https://www.metcheck.com/HOBBIES/mountain_forecast.asp?LocationID=3508
http://www.myweather2.com/Hill-and-Mountain/United-Kingdom/Cairngorm.aspx
http://www.meteoexploration.com/forecasts/CairngormMR/
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=ski;resort=S2781~Cairngorm%20;ses...

In reply to JdotP:

I tend to compare 3 different reports whilst avoiding the met office mountain weather as it is now useless since they changed the site - it's not very mountain specific but I find accuwether(not the mobile app) website very reliable .

In reply to JdotP:

I generally go by a combo of MWIS and Met Office specific for the peak if available. Never 100% correct but then none are ever going to be.

A few folk I know swear by this Norwegian site:

http://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Cairn_Gorm/

In reply to nathan79:

I was going to suggest yr.no
Surprisingly accurate

In reply to JdotP:
the sais reports contain a good and fairly specific forecast. generally accurate and produced by the metoffice.

In reply to JdotP:

someone recommended this to me the other day. I use it primarily for atmospheric thickness data which gives you a rough idea of temps. http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=000000...

In reply to nathan79:

I'm another devotee of yr.no. Gives excellent visualisations on the forecasts so you can judge the possible temperature and rainfall ranges rather than just having a 'best guess'

I know someone who always looked at some site from New Zealand... it seems crazy, but if all the data is available worldwide then any forecast provider could, in principle, produce good forecasts for any location. The difference then would just be between whose models are better and what information / visualisations they provide.

In reply to JdotP:

Sadly, the days of phoning a weather forecaster from a Highland glen during a blizzard and exchanging information appear to be gone and the computer model is now in charge. Thus the reference to a NZ site.

If you are only using one source then you are not going to get the best information. Look at perhaps three sites but if they always appear the same then perhaps they are using identical sources and should be changed for a more diverse selection.

In reply to JdotP:

I take a (nerdy) interest in meteorology and for planning routes, I'll interpret a bunch of parameters like wet bulbs, dew points, atmospheric thicknesses, modelled wind speeds/directions and cloud cover alongside what I know has occurred over the previous few days. On the day, I find I'm usually a step ahead of MWIS and SAIS but reckon the Met Office summit forecasts do give very accurate spot conditions, even if they don't give any context for what's happened in the run up like aspect snow loading and rain crusting, nor the effects of local geography such as the huge differences in comfort levels and visibility windward or leewards of summits or features.

In reply to JdotP:

yr.no is meant to be based on the ECMWF (European model), so it should be fairly reliable.
I like meteoexploration.com because they use the WRF model at higher resolution, and that's key for mountain terrain. They show also the ensembles, which tells you the reliability of the forecast (the narrower the dispersion, the more reliable the forecast), and there are other nearby peaks like http://www.meteoexploration.com/forecasts/Ben-MacDui/

In reply to JdotP:
There is a clue in the title!

They are forecasts, not glimpses through the crystal ball. so they will occasionally be wrong, like any other prediction, no matter how scientifically it is made. I think saying they let you down is misunderstanding the word forecast as well as passing the buck here - it's up to all of us to interpret the forecast ourselves rather than assume it is a factual statement.

In reply to JdotP:

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Ben-Nevis/forecasts/1344

Surprisingly accurate for a site that has 100's of individual forecasts, good because it gives low level and high level forecasts. Use this, MWIS, met office and BBC for building up a general picture and make your choices form there!! As above though, remember they're only ever forecasts, and can be massively out in the space of a few hours. It's winter, things change, and when they do they generally change in a bigger way than other seasons.

The yr.no forecasts are an interpretation of the ECMWF operational model updated twice daily in the same way as xcweather.com is an interpretation of GFS operational model, updated 4 times daily.

The Met Office location forecasts are derived from their own model. I can't see the point of using the BBC as well as the Met Office feeds directly to the BBC, who then provide less detail and with a delay.

MWIS use a variety of models but seem to side with GFS.

Here are two useful links for the Euro4 and WRF publicly available higher resolution short term model data ...

http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000...

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/wrfnmm.php?ech=3&mode=0&map=5

In reply to JdotP:

If feeling particularly enthusiastic and keen to 'go and have a look' whatever the weather, I tend to use Mountain Forecast for its optimistic freezing levels and nice sunny symbols (although its wind speeds do tend to be a bit high). I particularly like how easy that site makes it to view temperature and wind patterns over the coming week, which can build a clearer picture to help assess avalanche risk.

If I'm feeling pessimistic and looking for an excuse to stay at home, MWIS.

Danny.

In reply to Jim Fraser:


That's not necessarily true, as most forecasts are generated by running multiple models with slightly different parameters and then choosing the mean as the 'published' forecast. Effectively the Met Office, for example, are already looking at multiple sources and choosing an average for you. You adding another sample into the mix is not going to make a jot of difference.

In reply to JdotP:

Thanks everyone for all the replies! Does anyone know which model mountain-forecast use?

In reply to JdotP:

I'm almost certain that like their parallel website snow-forecast, they do a data crunch from GFS.

In reply to DannyC:




Must admit I'm similar!

In reply to JdotP:

I look at pretty much all the weather sites mentioned, until I find one that gives me the forecast I want....