Anyone really into weather forecast sites?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

We are working at a Chili Cookoff event on Saturday and the weather
is very iffy.

Out of the three websites we have been following, every one has
a different forecast.

Do you find one of these more reliable than other?

Weather.com

WeatherUnderground.com

Accuweather.com

[ann---]

1. Weather.com is my homepage

I LOVE it!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

17. Really? Interesting. I must not know how to set it up - it seems

so cumbersome to me - like too many clicks to find pertinent info and radar.

[Sherman A1]

2. I use NOAA

myself, but everyone has their own preference.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

18. that's another one too that is really the weather.gov feed.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. I tend to gravitate to the local stations...

...since their Meteorologists tend to focus/interpret the wx for the region they're in, not for several regions like the Weather Channel. Plus, they don't engage in silly stuff like naming winter storms with cutesy/scary names...

[FSogol]

4. Accuweather is the least accurate. Here's another reason to avoid them:

From wiki:

Rick "Santorum introduced the National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005 which aimed to prohibit the National Weather Service from releasing weather data to the public without charge where private-sector entities perform the same function commercially. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association was organizing a lobbying effort in opposition to the legislation, but it never passed committee. The motivations surrounding the bill were controversial, as employees of AccuWeather, a commercial weather company based in Pennsylvania, donated $10,500 to Santorum and his PAC. The liberal advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington cited the bill as one of several reasons for listing Santorum as one of its "most corrupt politicians".

[RKP5637]

8. Interesting, I had no idea. I've been using them, will try alternatives! n/t

[Laura PourMeADrink]

9. Well crap...they have the most favorable forecast ! Geez - who would

have ever thought weather could be bought.

[woodsprite]

5. If I had to pick from the 3, I'd go with WeatherUnderground.

In reality, when I'm trying to figure something out weather wise, I go to Bernie Rayno's video at Accuweather. Their main forecast is essentially a forecast by committee (use lots of weasel words), but Bernie is one of their Sr. forecaster's and he explains a lot during his videos. Bastardi used to be pretty good, but since he left AW, he's pretty much just spouting climate change denier rhetoric in between his 140 char tweets about the weather.

I also tend to read the threads in the Accuweather forums (the link should be down under Social on the left hand side of the page). If there is anything even slightly showing up on the models, there will be a discussion on it. It's usually listed something like "Feb 26-27 Storm MidAtl/NE" Something that says your region. A good number of states emergency management people tend to gravitate to the forums.

Yup, I confess. I am a weather weenie.

What region are you looking for?

If you're in the north eastern US, you may also get some good info out of the following FB pages -

Justin Berk, Meteorologist (if you're in MD)
Wx Risk (if you're in Virginia, West Virginia, NC areas)
Eastern PA Weather Authority (if you're in New Jersey, Eastern PA or Delaware)

And you can always type in "US National Weather Service" in the FB and choose the one for your area.

[FLPanhandle]

11. Same here. In my experience, WeatherUnderground has consistently been the most accurate

When there is a hurricane out there, it's hands down the best.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

15. Yes. And I love that sliding hour by hour bar - it gives you everything

you need - temp - chance of rain/snow - wind speed all together in one glance !

[Laura PourMeADrink]

14. central tx. And thanks - they are showing only a 35% chance of rain

I will check out the forums - appreciate all you wrote !

[Laura PourMeADrink]

16. hmm just read that wunderground is owned by the Weather Channel nt

[woodsprite]

19. Yes, I think it transferred hands last year, but they haven't had a chance to ruin it yet. n/t

[Laura PourMeADrink]

20. LOL - wish I could remember the site I LOVED that went defunct when bought. nt

[brooklynite]

6. Go to the source:

www.weather.gov (National Weather Service)

[Laura PourMeADrink]

10. Nope...don't like that one :>) 50% chance of wintry mix. nt

[In_The_Wind]

7. I have WeatherBug installed on my computer. It's never let me down yet.

http://weather.weatherbug.com/

Good luck

[Laura PourMeADrink]

12. Thanks - it's cool - I always hate having to enter the place

I want weather for.

What's interesting too is that they must use weather.gov - noticed
forecast worded exactly the same.

[RKP5637]

13. Works extremely well! Just installed the extension for Google Chrome Linux. It

has all the features I like including the hourly forecast. Thanks for posting this. I tried it a long time ago, did not work well with Linux, but with the new Google Chrome extension everything works perfectly.

[tosh]

23. Weatherbug is great!

They have a free phone app, too.

[spanone]

21. intellicast

http://www.intellicast.com

[BarbaRosa]

22. The master, of course