Crap weather forecasting

LCBXX

LCBXX

Honorary Master
Joined
Apr 11, 2006
Messages
25,113
Reaction score
16,517
Location
Little Falls
I'm not sure whether this is just a South African Weather Service problem, but the weather forecasting for this country is really up to shyte.

We really wanted to take the bike out for a long ride this morning. At about 08:00 the sky was clear with no wind whatsoever. When I started rolling the e bike out at about 09:30, the were a couple of clouds and the wind was getting up, although not gusty. So I thought I better check what the rest of the day will look like.

Going to WeatherSA's website, the forecast was 80% change of rain in our area as well as the areas we wanted to ride to, with predicted rain measurements varying between 15-20mm, which is plenty! So we decided against the out-ride and stuck to doing stuff around the house.

It's now 17:15. Although it's chilly outside, not a single drop of rain has fallen. The wind has died down and the sky is a little hazy. No bulky cumulus clouds in sight. There were some from about 11:00 to 14:30, but no rain whatsoever.

And this is not the first time WeatherSA got it wrong. When we had flooding levels of rain on Tuesday, together with hail fscking up everything, the forecast was 30% of rain up to 10mm. Other days the forecast is sunshine or partly cloudy, and then it rains. WTF?

At least the winter forecasts seems to be accurate. Cold.
 
lcbxx said:
I'm not sure whether this is just a South African Weather Service problem, but the weather forecasting for this country is really up to shyte.

We really wanted to take the bike out for a long ride this morning. At about 08:00 the sky was clear with no wind whatsoever. When I started rolling the e bike out at about 09:30, the were a couple of clouds and the wind was getting up, although not gusty. So I thought I better check what the rest of the day will look like.

Going to WeatherSA's website, the forecast was 80% change of rain in our area as well as the areas we wanted to ride to, with predicted rain measurements varying between 15-20mm, which is plenty! So we decided against the out-ride and stuck to doing stuff around the house.

It's now 17:15. Although it's chilly outside, not a single drop of rain has fallen. The wind has died down and the sky is a little hazy. No bulky cumulus clouds in sight. There were some from about 11:00 to 14:30, but no rain whatsoever.

And this is not the first time WeatherSA got it wrong. When we had flooding levels of rain on Tuesday, together with hail fscking up everything, the forecast was 30% of rain up to 10mm. Other days the forecast is sunshine or partly cloudy, and then it rains. WTF?

At least the winter forecasts seems to be accurate. Cold.
Click to expand...
Rather use international weather services like accuweather or if your phone has weather capabilities, use that. Weather SA sucks..
 
Hmm, AccuWeather seems to be accurate of the current weather conditions. Places like Freemeteo claims it's raining...
 
Had the same issue.

Last week Monday was supposed to be rainy. So I took the car to work.

And it never rained a drop.

Checked on Friday the weather forecast - no rain.

Guess what? It rains now. :rolleyes:

Maybe their updates are not syncing correctly? Or they don't know how to read the results?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaai ja....
 
Go get yourself an aviation text book and learn to decode this... little bit more accurate :D :

FAJS 041600Z 0418/0524 33010KT 9999 BKN020 FEW025CB
PROB30 TEMPO 0418/0420 5000 TSRA BKN008 FEW025CB BKN060
BECMG 0420/0422 BKN010
TEMPO 0422/0507 3000 DZ BR OVC005
PROB30 TEMPO 0502/0506 0500 DZ FG OVC002
FM050900 28010KT 9999 BKN020
BECMG 0511/0513 SCT030
BECMG 0516/0518 21010KT CAVOK TX22/0512ZTN11/0504Z=
 
Just_Ice said:
Running it :) Its usually fairly accurate. But dont they get their info from the SA weather services anyway?
Click to expand...

Yes they do.
Accuweather, Weather Underground and international forcastesters all get their local data from the SAWS.
The SAWS is the only service in SA that can provide accurate weather models and forecasts.
 
Last edited:
There is a wealth of information on the weathersa site. Particularly the aviation part. Take some time to learn about all the different charts / graphs etc... Its very interesting and gives you an edge over the house wive's forecast.

Starting here... You can watch storms brewing and blowing around. Times are in universal time so its an actual reflection of about 5 or so minutes ago.

Link: http://metsys.weathersa.co.za/RSAStorms.html
 
genetic said:
Accuweather, Weather Underground and international forcastesters all get their local data from the SAWS.
The SAWS is the only service in SA that can provide accurate weather models and forecasts.
Click to expand...

genetic is correct.

// begin quote

Quite simply, everything else out there is completely inaccurate. Accuweather, Weather Underground, and all the international weather sites source their data from a single one of OUR pre-forecast model runs. We would NEVER publish that data to end users - it's a first rough cut of the high level systems, and has almost nothing to do with what happens in your town. After sharing that data with WMO met offices around the world (we get theirs, they get ours), we combine the results with 5 other local model systems, and then hand the complete set of data over to locally based weather forecasters. These are the guys who know everything about their region's topography, and do forecasts that models simply cannot do. It's the same way it's done all over the world; no single country would even dream of using the shared international model runs to do a local forecast.

Here's a brief list of what SAWS, and only SAWS, has exclusive access to:

* National radar network (how anyone can predict anything without radar is just laughable)
* National lightning detection network
* 5 regional offices
* A very large team of forecasters, each with regional knowledge of topography (eg CT mountain! Imagine modeling CT as a smooth globe!!)
* Numerous model runs which forecasters use for various systems (rain is done from a different model to humidity which is different from wind etc)

SAWS is Africa's only met office accredited by the WMO to do Africa-wide forecasts. No one else does it. So, when accuweather allows you to enter your exact geographic position to get a forecast for Dainfern being 8km away from Lanseria, they are doing an interpolation between the grossly inaccurate JHB forecast they have, and the grossly inaccurate PTA forecast. Just because they can show the current conditions of Lanseria (pirated from our realtime WMO data feed), it does not mean they have a forecast for Lanseria. We do. We own the weather station there, and we're required to do a very detailed forecast for that airport.

Don't believe us? Just watch our forecasts for a while and then decide. It'd be laughable...if it wasn't serious!

PS: Right now, eTV do not source from us, nor does Weather24, nor does DSTV weather channel. They all prefer to use the free feeds. So if you want an easy comparison, just watch any of those channels and compare to our forecasts, you'll quickly get the idea.

http://dev2.weathersa.co.za/subscr/faq.html
 
genetic said:
Yes they do.
Accuweather, Weather Underground and international forcastesters all get their local data from the SAWS.
The SAWS is the only service in SA that can provide accurate weather models and forecasts.
Click to expand...

Silly question. Do you know whether the SAWS just send them the rew data and they calculate a forecast or do SAWS just givw them rthe forecast?
 
mister said:
genetic is correct.

// begin quote

Quite simply, everything else out there is completely inaccurate. Accuweather, Weather Underground, and all the international weather sites source their data from a single one of OUR pre-forecast model runs. We would NEVER publish that data to end users - it's a first rough cut of the high level systems, and has almost nothing to do with what happens in your town. After sharing that data with WMO met offices around the world (we get theirs, they get ours), we combine the results with 5 other local model systems, and then hand the complete set of data over to locally based weather forecasters. These are the guys who know everything about their region's topography, and do forecasts that models simply cannot do. It's the same way it's done all over the world; no single country would even dream of using the shared international model runs to do a local forecast.

Here's a brief list of what SAWS, and only SAWS, has exclusive access to:

* National radar network (how anyone can predict anything without radar is just laughable)
* National lightning detection network
* 5 regional offices
* A very large team of forecasters, each with regional knowledge of topography (eg CT mountain! Imagine modeling CT as a smooth globe!!)
* Numerous model runs which forecasters use for various systems (rain is done from a different model to humidity which is different from wind etc)

SAWS is Africa's only met office accredited by the WMO to do Africa-wide forecasts. No one else does it. So, when accuweather allows you to enter your exact geographic position to get a forecast for Dainfern being 8km away from Lanseria, they are doing an interpolation between the grossly inaccurate JHB forecast they have, and the grossly inaccurate PTA forecast. Just because they can show the current conditions of Lanseria (pirated from our realtime WMO data feed), it does not mean they have a forecast for Lanseria. We do. We own the weather station there, and we're required to do a very detailed forecast for that airport.

Don't believe us? Just watch our forecasts for a while and then decide. It'd be laughable...if it wasn't serious!

PS: Right now, eTV do not source from us, nor does Weather24, nor does DSTV weather channel. They all prefer to use the free feeds. So if you want an easy comparison, just watch any of those channels and compare to our forecasts, you'll quickly get the idea.

http://dev2.weathersa.co.za/subscr/faq.html
Click to expand...

Do you provide forecasts or just current weather?
 
I do not think weather forecasting is an exact science yet, sure they can get it pretty spot on at times but i also think at times it can go badly wrong :D.
 
Weer Voorspelling. It's says it all. They cannot predict with certainty what is going to happen. But they are a bit more accurate than tarot card readers.
 
BrendanD said:
Silly question. Do you know whether the SAWS just send them the rew data and they calculate a forecast or do SAWS just givw them rthe forecast?
Click to expand...

SAWS does provide complete forecasts and raw data, but the majority of service providers use the free forecasts provided by the SAWS.

The SABC is one of the few service providers that actually purchase raw data from the SAWS and compile a forecast map from the raw data.
I find that SABC's weather forecast is far more accurate than eTV's, or many other sources for that matter.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X