long range weather

Submitted: Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 07:55
ThreadID: 134942 Views:3681 Replies:7 FollowUps:8
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Anyone got a long range weather forecast site ?
looking for rain forecast central aust early/mid june
Doesn't look like Elders weather do it now ???
Cheers Nick b

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Reply By: Gramps - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 08:42

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 08:42
They've got 28-day and 12 month forecasts here. It's a new site design, apparently (i've never used it before).

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Follow Up By: Member - nick b - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 09:47

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 09:47
must have had a boys look the other day ..... cheers
Cheers Nick b

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Follow Up By: Gramps - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 09:53

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 09:53
Hahaha we all do that at times. SWMBO says I do it all the time :)

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Follow Up By: Life Member - Duncan W (WA) - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 10:01

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 10:01
I've been using Elders Weather for a number of years now and find it great as you can put in a town or post code and all the forecasts are given.

The 28 day rain forecast is especially helpful. And also the sunrise sunset function.

Cheers

Dunc
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Reply By: Member - DW Lennox Head(NSW) - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 08:43

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 08:43
Nickb

The reasonably accurate forecasts can be found here:

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/outlooks/#/rainfall/summary

I use this for more accuracy closer to the time I am interested in.

http://wxmaps.org/pix/prec7.html

I have used this one since 2001 and find it is about as good as you will get.

Hope that helps.

Duncan
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Reply By: Member - Boobook - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 10:47

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 10:47
Here is my forecast for one month out. It will be hot or cold, and sunny or overcast, and raining, or dry.

Or putting it another way aligned with the new BOM methodology. There will be a 50% chance of rain.

Prior to going away on trips in the past, I've kept a close eye on long range forecasts from the BOM, Accuweather and Elders. IMHO it's an exercise in wasting time.

Until it gets to about 5 days out, the forecasts are highly unreliable. The long rang forecasts change every day until the dates you are interested in get close.

The most reliable predictor is going by climate averages for the period you are interested in.





AnswerID: 611401

Follow Up By: AJC - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 13:44

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 13:44
Yeah, in the 1960s a fellow called Lorenz tried long-range weather forecasting - eventually tore his hair out (so to speak) - "if a damn butterfly in the Amazon flaps its wings, it affects the weather forecast in Texas!" (or so the story goes).
That said, I've always found the long-range forecasts on Elders useful - I just take them as a rough guide, and that works for me!
Cheers,
AJC

PS: To get long-range rainfall forecasts on the new Elders site, you now have to click "take me to the old website"
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Follow Up By: 9900Eagle - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 15:16

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 15:16
There were 3 long-range forecasters. Indigo Jones who passed his knowledge onto Lennox Walker who in turn passed it on to his son Hayden Walker. They had a very good strike rate with long range forecasting. Large outdoor event operators, such as Royal shows and concerts would pay them for forecasts to cut insurance costs. They were also very good at predicting cyclones.

Now days with climate change, I don't thing anyone has been accurate with forecasts. The cyclone chasers predicted 15 cyclones across the top of Australia for the 16/17 season and from memory they predicted 5 cat 4 or above. Boy were they wrong, hardly a cyclone at all.






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Follow Up By: Member - J&A&KK - Friday, May 26, 2017 at 03:40

Friday, May 26, 2017 at 03:40
Tony. I agree. I live in Perth. Most 7 day forecasts by the BOM are unreliable. For about one month I tabulated the 7 day forecasts, day by day, against the 6, 5,4... etc day forecasts against the actuals in a spreadsheet.

Outcome was that there was only some reliability in the 2 day out forecasts. I simplified the reliability measures to the following. Max temp +/- 3C and did it rain or not. It was too difficult to deal with BOM's % chance of rain vs number of mm predicted. So I ignored the no of mm and just dealt with the % chance of rain.

At 2 days out the forecasts are reasonable about 70% of the time for temp and rain or no rain.

At 7 days out the forecasts were reasonable less than 10% of the time.

Conclusion, as you have stated, use climatic normals for estimating weather circumstances a week or more in advance.

The BOM have invested 100's of $M in technology in the last 10 years. It has resulted in much more data being available but it's difficult to see improvement in longer range forecasts.
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Reply By: Steve D1 - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 16:12

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 16:12
Meteorology? Long range forecasts? Short term forecasts? PLEASE.....
How it is considered a science is beyond me. All last week we were warned by every "forecaster" in the land, that Sydney was going to receive 4 months of rain over the next few days. 4 months worth of Sahara desert rain maybe. I think we had 4 drops in total.

Just have to go and hope for the best I'm afraid.

Steve
AnswerID: 611407

Follow Up By: Member - Mark (Tamworth NSW) - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 18:22

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 18:22
The Sydney 4 months of rain forecast was a media beat up not the Bureau.
My father asked me, I looked up the Bureau forecasts & models and the place which was forecast for heavy falls was the Whitsundays-Townsville region (which did)
Sydney was never forecast for heavy rain by the Bureau, the Media misquoted/ hopelessly misread what the Bureau said
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Follow Up By: Sigmund - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 19:49

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 19:49
And forecasts are not predictions.
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Reply By: Member - Mark (Tamworth NSW) - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 18:11

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 18:11
Elders use Weatherzone, who use some long range models to go out 28 days. They talk about rainfall probabilities NOT actual amount, so a high probability may mean they are very confident of receiving something, but they won't forecast whether it's 2mm or 20mm.
You need to pay a small subscription fee and the EO response site doesn't let me cut and paste the output.
What they are presently saying is for June no rain forecast before 19 June.
This gets updated daily and can change.
Shorter term there is the Bureau 10 day ACCESS model, again subscription needed, and it is saying no rain through to next Saturday.
WX Maps is free but hopelessly overestimates the amount of rain actually received, but at least it's good in the 7 day period of forecasting whether it will rain.
The bureau 8 day forecast is the best free one I know of, there is a free German based one which again is better than WX Maps. I hope these links work out
Wetterkarte Australian Precip Forecasts

Bureau Of Meteorology 8 Day Rain Forecast

If you find better systems let me know, as having access to something reliable 4 weeks out, would earn you more money than knowing the winner of next week's horse races !

AnswerID: 611410

Reply By: Dean K3 - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 19:16

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 19:16
willy weather but like most 7 day forecast is best you can get -certainly give more info for a specific place than BOM does

available either as smart phone application or internet via lappy/computer
AnswerID: 611414

Reply By: Member - shane r1 - Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 20:00

Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 20:00
All of the forecasts are just an educated guess at best , so till it happens who really knows?
AnswerID: 611417

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