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This is one of the most frustrating subjects of all. I have tried a very large number of weather apps over the recent years and not a single one of them is accurate enough to actually be any use. Even things like MetOffice, Ventusky, Weather&Radar, Clearoutside seem unable to even show present conditions (surely the easiest of all the use cases) with any relationship to reality!! Ideally, I would like to know, say six hours out, whether it will be clear for the coming night and for how long. But I have given up on all of them now and I just look out of the window and make my own estimate. It's pretty shocking just how bad these all seem to be. At least I only need this for my hobby. The people I feel really sorry for are farmers, sailors etc for whom accurate weather prediction is far more important. |
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I use six different weather apps and when 3 of them shows me a good forecast for the night I start my rig. Unfortunately sometimes the other three are right. CS Werner |
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Paid Windy is working good for me and gives accurate forecast most the time. Always check the last update before travel which is at 11am for me then I can prepare the gears. CS! |
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Werner Stumpferl: There are probably more weather apps than meteorological models out there, so I assume most of the apps use the same models. Maybe we need an "Astronomers Outside" or "Gear ready for First-Light" app but I guess even in that case, Murphy will always win  I use the Meteoblue webpage, satellite imagery from various sources, and my experience, taking into consideration the local landscape peculiarities. This mostly works for my location and since my gear is very simple and cheap, I would easier accept the risk when in doubt compared to some colleague owing a heavy and expensive rig and a laptop. Meteoblue allows for comparison of many in-house and third-party models (look under Forecast > Multimodel). There you can see how varying are the model predictions; a nice demonstration of how complicated the task of weather prediction is. |
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| In addition to my general local weather forecasts, I use Astrospheric, Good To Stargaze, and Clear Outside. They are generally fairly accurate a couple of days out and improve as the evening approaches. They're good at predicting "clear all night" and "iffy" cloud cover. I don't tend to dodge clouds. Cheers! |
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Dear Ralph, dear community Besides using weather-apps there are other convenient methods to consider: As a commercial helicopterpilot I suggest to just check the METAR/TAF from your nearest airport. You'll get all the relevant data like cloud-altitude, cloud-coverage, visibility, wind, pressure, temperature and dewpoint presented in a very reliable and accurate way. METAR: Current weather report (normally updated every 30min). TAF: Weather forecast for the next several hours. As for my location at this very moment it states: METAR: LSZR 291220Z 21004KT 170V280 9999 FEW040 02/M04 Q1027 RMK D TAF: LSZR 291125Z 2912/2921 VRB02KT CAVOK TEMPO 2912/2918 9999 SCT035 Once you learned to decode, you will get all the information you need in a very compact and efficient way. You can obtain this information from your airport on websites or spoken text (radiofrequency or for some airports via telephone). Note that the time provided is UTC / zulu time. Another useful tool is the thermodynamic diagram ("emagram") which is provided - in my region - two times a day by weatherballoons/radioprobes. This way you can determine the dewpoint and thereby the clouddeveloppement. Just check your nearest meteorological service or you can probably get the diagram from the website of a nearby paragliding-club. Kind regards |
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| +1 for Astrospheric . |
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Ed Dixon: Now we just need to persuade them to cover the rest of the world too! |
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Worth noting for all that Apple bought the API used by ClearOutside and it is shutting down by the end of March (for Android, at least), because Capitalism requires endless commodification of data previously used for the collective benefit of mankind. Lacking this at some point I will probably begin relying more on ClearDarkSky again since I think they will still be active. Anyway, Astrospheric (mentioned numerous times) is good, but I also use the CONUS data to double check. |
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| There is an iPhone app Xasteria+ that combines 7timer, Dark Sky, Clear Outside, meteoblue, Windy, Astropheric, Sat24, nearby Clear Sky Charts , Jetstream, NOAA Water Vapor, plus utilities for ISS passes, and local Bortle class/light pollution maps. I usually reference seveal when planning to image and make a decision. |
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Georg N. Nyman: Weather forecast accuracy continues to improve rapidly. While there are limits in principle on predictability, we're continually getting closer to it. How quickly we forget that a "modern five-day forecast is as accurate as a one-day forecast in 1980," to quote the authors of the linked paper. |
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| I've had really good luck using Telescopius: https://telescopius.com/weather I like how displays as well as shows the seeing. |
