I live in Staines Upon Thames and due to the fact that I am refurbishing the roof and adding solar panels to my old house, the weather has become very important to me. Irrespective of whether I intend to work outside on a particular day or not, I always check with the Met Office and BBC Weather to see how much sun there will be and thus how much electricity I am likely to generate. I also live in a flood area so rainfall is important because a few years ago, the river Thames paid an uninvited visit to our home and filled the entire space below the floorboards.
The above has brought to my attention, just how inaccurate our weather forecasts are, and indeed how lousy both websites are at knowing what the weather is actually doing outside at that moment. Now I do understand that accurate long range forecasting is beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful computers, but it is inexcusable when there is no rain forecast, it is pouring down outside and the website stubbornly denies this and still shows no rain. I have lost count of the number of times I have opened up a section of roof on the promise of no rainfall, only to end up sliding around on wet tiles and hurriedly closing back up again in an unforecast downpour.
If two major weather forecasting outlets cannot even accurately reflect the real time weather they should maybe just give up. Met Office currently says it will be, and is dry at the moment but a 30% chance of showers in three hours time. It's bloody raining outside!
If either forecaster reads this, I can help to improve your accuracy considerably. Just give me a call and you will at least be right about what is actually happening outside. I can also assist with short term forecasting e.g. there is another big black cloud coming.
Before I go. Dear Met Office why does your graphical weather information disagree with your weather map i.e. bright green clouds indicating heavy rain on your map but your graphic says only 10% chance of rain.
I will not be working on the roof today!
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