New Met Office website - your views

[horizon]

I don't like to be unduly critical of the efforts of others (Really?? Ed.) but I am having problems getting to like the new Met Office website. The old one was pretty awful but the new one is worse, in my view.

Here's why:

1. It's not a very pretty site with pedestrian graphics and a colour scheme more suited to a firm of undertakers (with just enough of a touch of light green to make you feel queasy - rough weather expected?).

2. It carries annoying advertising - hardily appropriate on a safety critical government site.

3. It is not always easy to use and finding things can be awkward but I accept that just might be me.

Does anyone else have any views, at least to persuade me otherwise?

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weat ... ab=fiveDay

[NUKe]

It your opinion I wouldn't want to change it, but I like the new site. The weather maps are easy to understand and you can select the different things you want to look at. For an overall feel quick view the timeline is great.

[al_yrpal]

To get decent forward weather information from the Met Office you have to pay. So, I never bother with their site and use the Norwegian weather site which has it all and is completely free. When enjoying offshore sailing good weather info is vital, particularly when you are planning a trip where you may be abroad for a few days.

Here's the site http://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/E ... irmingham/

Al

[horizon]

It your opinion I wouldn't want to change it, but I like the new site. The weather maps are easy to understand and you can select the different things you want to look at. For an overall feel quick view the timeline is great.

Thanks NUke. I've had a play with the home page and it's a bit better. I am beginning to think that it is the unremitting grey and black that does my head in - did no-ne think about the association with grey clouds?

[horizon]

To get decent forward weather information from the Met Office you have to pay. So, I never bother with their site and use the Norwegian weather site which has it all and is completely free. When enjoying offshore sailing good weather info is vital, particularly when you are planning a trip where you may be abroad for a few days.

Here's the site http://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/E ... irmingham/

Al

Even Birmingham is sunny today on that website! And the colour scheme is a sunny sky blue!

[binsted]

To get decent forward weather information from the Met Office you have to pay. So, I never bother with their site and use the Norwegian weather site which has it all and is completely free. When enjoying offshore sailing good weather info is vital, particularly when you are planning a trip where you may be abroad for a few days.

Here's the site http://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/E ... irmingham/

Al

I am not sure that is quite correct there is enough free information on The Met Office site you just have to know what you are looking for. Can you explain how by paying I am going to get a better forecast for say Birmingham, what information will they give me that is not readily available. There are only two main players in UK , Met Office and GFS so most individual weather sites are using the information derived from one of these sources.

[al_yrpal]

Hmm.. Looks like the Met Office have altered things since I last looked. They used to charge for extended Marine Forecasts, but no longer seem to be doing so with synoptic charts for several days ahead. Its much improved from what it was. I like the detailed wind direction and strength displayed on the Norwegian info though, its of interest when touring.

Al

[ChrisButch]

Compare it with what the Norwegian Met Office site does....still seems amateur by comparison.

[iviehoff]

The Norwegian yr.no is my favourite website too. It really sings that so many of us have found it and think it is the best. The graphical presentation so much better.

The rainfall uncertainty presentation is particular strength of yr.no. yr.no gives a max and min possible amount of rainfall at a given moment in time, marked by the dark blue and light blue bars (you only see this if you are looking at the hour-by-hour graphical presentation). Met Office on the other hand gives "probability of precipitation", without any indication of possible quantities. This is really very lazy. PoP figures nicely pop out of their models, no doubt, but ordinary people want to have some understanding of quantity, and probabilities are weakly understood. Ordinary people look at 99% PoP and think it's going to be really wet, when of course it could be 99% probability of a brief and light shower. The more intelligent understands this, and is then frustrated to have no understanding of likely intensity and duration. When Met Office were consulting on their new website, I gave them a long and considered comment on why they really should not go down the lazy route of PoPs (which I had seen a decade earlier in Canada, as it happens), but give some indication of intensity and duration ranges. yr.no shows it can be nicely done. But they took no notice.

There is also the issue of accuracy: surely the Met Office focusing on a UK forecast will give a rather more accurate forecast, one would think. But my experience is the opposite. Probably precisely because a lot of Norwegian weather comes from the direction of our islands they need a good understanding of it in their model. I have in particular verified their superior prediction of frosts, something that matters to me as a gardener. I followed the Met vs yr forecast for some period last autumn winter to see who would better predict frosts, and yr beat met office hands down. Of course there are days when both yr & met office are equally and completely wrong, so some things still haven't been fixed in weather forecasting whoever does it.

[John-D]

- - I like the detailed wind direction and strength displayed on the Norwegian info though, its of interest when touring.

Al

Presentation seems about the same to me, although Met Office has more on 'gusts'. They display info over different time periods but I find it difficult to one is better than the other. Can't comment on accuracy, though.

[flat tyre]

I find the map page graphics very slow, if I click the play button often it has moved on the next time before loading the graphics for the previous period. I prefer the graphics on the BBC weather page.
The synoptic charts have become difficult to read.

[Fasgadh]

wetterzentrale.de is a good place too.

[aprildavy]

Try http://www.forecast.co.uk

[squeaker]

Cr*p
But then I would say that as the new site won't work on my (not-so-smart) phone. On a PC I find the map animations jerky and the controls poor by comparison with the old site.
http://www.forecast.co.uk/europe/satellite/ does look good, though
(For sailing I use windfinder.com's superforecast and windguru pro.)

[naff_monk]

The speed of the map is definitely annoying and is the main area for improvement as far as I'm concerned, colours? Just don't care. I don't understand how anyone can be happy with a few little pictures for specific localities either, especially when you're on the move. These sites are all about the maps for me, so what ever has the best map, will be the one that I use.

So far the Met office site beats anything else I've come across for (albeit slightly jerky) content, add the app into the mix which I completely rely on while on tour, it's a winner hands down IMO, I just wish it covered Europe, not just the UK.

Laurence