Lack of accuracy of weather station and Cumulus forecasts
Posted: Sat 29 Jun 2019 2:43 pm
I appreciate that weather stations and Cumulus use fairly low-tech algorithms to work out a weather forecast, but has anyone ever had a forecast that bears any resemblence to the current or near-future weather?
I've set the lat/long/altitude to my location. The wind, rainfall, temperature, pressure and humidity readings seem sensible - and changing over time. The weather station (Davis Vantage Vue) is sited about 1.5 m above ground on a pole which is on a large area of grass, so the temperature is not affected by heat reflected off a hot patio, and there's probably about 10 m all round that is clear of bushes etc. (When I work out the best place, I'd like to mount the station higher up, clear of many of the bushes and yet hopefully not shielded too much by the gable-end of the roof or subject to air that has been heated by roof tiles.)
And yet the station and Cumulus forecasts seem to be fairly unchanging and generally pessimistic, no matter what the weather is doing.
As an example, it is very hot and sunny at the moment, and MetOffice and The Weather Outlook predict this to continue (full sun, temp gradually falling from 20-17 deg C between 1500 and 2200, then cloudy overnight and hazy sun tomorrow from 0500 to 1200; chance of rain < 5% throughout). But the weather station and Cumulus predict "Increasing clouds with little temperature change. Precipitation possible and windy within 6 hours" and "Occasional rain, worsening" respectively.
Is there some factor that I've set wrongly which causes *such* incorrect forecasts, and forecasts which vary very little despite the real weather?
Weather station results are at http://goosebears.co.uk/weather/ Ignore the static temp and humidity between about 1400 and 1500 today - the console lost comms with the remote sensor and had to be rebooted. The spike in inside temp at around 0800-1000 happens some mornings - I think low-angle early-morning sun is falling on the console: I'll have to try moving it a bit.
I've set the lat/long/altitude to my location. The wind, rainfall, temperature, pressure and humidity readings seem sensible - and changing over time. The weather station (Davis Vantage Vue) is sited about 1.5 m above ground on a pole which is on a large area of grass, so the temperature is not affected by heat reflected off a hot patio, and there's probably about 10 m all round that is clear of bushes etc. (When I work out the best place, I'd like to mount the station higher up, clear of many of the bushes and yet hopefully not shielded too much by the gable-end of the roof or subject to air that has been heated by roof tiles.)
And yet the station and Cumulus forecasts seem to be fairly unchanging and generally pessimistic, no matter what the weather is doing.
As an example, it is very hot and sunny at the moment, and MetOffice and The Weather Outlook predict this to continue (full sun, temp gradually falling from 20-17 deg C between 1500 and 2200, then cloudy overnight and hazy sun tomorrow from 0500 to 1200; chance of rain < 5% throughout). But the weather station and Cumulus predict "Increasing clouds with little temperature change. Precipitation possible and windy within 6 hours" and "Occasional rain, worsening" respectively.
Is there some factor that I've set wrongly which causes *such* incorrect forecasts, and forecasts which vary very little despite the real weather?
Weather station results are at http://goosebears.co.uk/weather/ Ignore the static temp and humidity between about 1400 and 1500 today - the console lost comms with the remote sensor and had to be rebooted. The spike in inside temp at around 0800-1000 happens some mornings - I think low-angle early-morning sun is falling on the console: I'll have to try moving it a bit.