weather forcasts............

Where do you folks get forecasts that you can halfway depend on???? I give up.... Have to bring the horses is any day now, but have been milking it as long as possible. Was planning to move them today because it is supposed to rain on the weekend. Went to bed with stars in the sky, got up this morning and checked the internet for 6 days out, no rain at all. Moved another round bale because I have to work through the weekend and had them ready so I just have to drive by and check morning and evening. Got back to the house, and it started p!ssing the rain down......... Hoping it's just a freak.

Done venting now..........

Dave

If you find a place with accurate forecasts, let me know.

For the farm, I use weather.com. For Dallas, watch the tv. At least it gives us some idea of what might happen.

My niece"s hubby has a masters degree in meteorology (not a tv weatherman) and says any forecast for more than 24 hrs is just an educated (maybe) guess.

The KC Star did a survey of the 4 biggest stations in that area and one of the news directors actually said "people are more concerned with the presentation than they are with accuracy..." . Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I could care less if a hand puppet or even Mr. Magoo is on the screen giving the forecast as long as there is some accuracy to it. So anyway, after THAT encouraging statement, I built a weather rock and put it in the yard and don't even watch the weather any more. For those of you who aren't familiar with weather rocks, google it.

My local ABC channel is fairly accurate 2-3 days out, after that it's just a guess.

I don't know about Germany, but my homepage is The National Weather Service 7 day forecast. I usually use their forecast a little but mostly I look at the maps myself and do my own predicting. I think I can dso a better job than they do alot of times.

I don't trust anybody on TV, they couldn't tell you the weather if they were standing in it.

Tim K in NW Ohio ~ Just back from a land auction right around the corner.

i got tired of the local guessterologists years ago...been kinda watchin stuff on my own and using Intellicast and Weather Underground for info.
WU is mainly US but you may find something usefull
http://www.wunderground.com/US/Region/US/2xpxFronts.html

Intellicast has more worldwide stuff...poke around on both sites when you got time to snoop.
Intellicast Global

I usually go with www.noaa.gov and www.accuweather.com. Both of them are as about as acuurate as your gonna get. Accuweather"s site will get you a little more in depth info, hourly forcast and such. But neither are by no means perfect....

We have a unique situation locally. An amatuer meteorologist started turning in his forecasts to the local radio station about 30 years ago, and asked only that they compare his forecasts to what actually happened, and compare to the accuracy of the pro forecasts they were using. He turned out to be much more accurate, and has been their weather guy ever since. He is a locomotive engineer by trade, and I don't know if he has any formal training in weather. He sometimes hedges on the longer term forecasts- gives 2 or 3 possible scenarios, and tells which he thinks is most likely. But usually, he gives an accurate forecast for about 3 days out.

He's kind of a local celebrity- speaks at schools, etc. He's been keeping records at his "Newaukum Hill weather station" for about 40 years now. He's forecasting snow above 500 feet elevation on Friday- told us the earliest snow hereabouts was November 5, 1973. You don't get that kind of stuff from the Associated Press.

I don't even watch the weather anymore until they show the 7 day forecast. They spend too much time telling the temperature in 20 different towns that are all within a degree of each other. Gotta make the senior women happy.

Our storms come out of the northwest and southwest. The tv may show a low level low and front passing through but that is short notice stuff. The main stuff to watch is the upper level highs and lows as they come in from the Pacific and then see how they develop over the Rockies. The jet stream is a good indicator of where those upper level systems are. Knowing where those systems and jet streams are and where they are trending is all I need to know along with where the moisture is coming from. Nothing like a strong high pressure ridge over the plains keeping that cold artic air out. Those storms from the northwest tend to be drier and the ones from the southwest forming over the 4 corners area pack a lot of moisture (i.e. heavy snow or rain) coming across from Baja CA. Then its a matter of where the upper level high pressure as to whether a storm will be steared northeast or kept to the south over OK and TX. During the summer I watch for Gulf moisture and unstable air masses which are indicated by low level cumulus clouds. The tv guys don't show this stuff.

I started using weather underground about two years ago. I believe that they are more localized in their forecasts. They will split an area that most of the services use into maybe three smaller areas so it's a little more accurate I think.