Weather or Accuweather

deereman64 · Mar 19, 2006

Which web site do you prefer/find more accurate accuweather.com or weather.com? I use both these web sites, but tend to look more at accuweather. I like their lead stories showing the intereaction of air masses etc and the 15 fday forecast is nice. However, my feeling is for these longer forecasts weather tends to be more accurate whilst accuweather gets a little bit carried away sometimes. I live in new york and would be interested if other people have the same experience

techman · Mar 19, 2006

I like www.wunderground.com far better than either of the other two. They have an especially good presentation of tropical/hurricane weather.

Also www.intellicast.com seems to have the best presentation of radar, NEXTRAD and loops for each.

paul

Bird · Mar 19, 2006

I've looked at most of the others from time to time, but I routinely use the National Weather Service. Even though it's the "Southern Region" you can get the weather and radar almost anywhere in the country.

deereman64 · Mar 19, 2006

Yes wunderground is good, but I sense I pick up a lot of sticky ads from that site

HappyCPE · Mar 19, 2006

I always use wunderground. If you give them five bucks, you don't get any ads. I figure it is worth it since I hit the site 2-4 times a day.

ronjhall · Mar 19, 2006

Accuweather seems to do a better job of providing good marine weather for my area of the great lakes. For everyday weather I use weather.com. Because Comcast uses them on their home page.

TMcD_in_MI · Mar 19, 2006

( I always use wunderground. If you give them five bucks, you don't get any ads. I figure it is worth it since I hit the site 2-4 times a day. )

Good call, Happy. I do exactly the same thing. I've been using WeatherUnderground since they started, and five bucks a year is cheap for no ads.

Tom

Freds · Mar 20, 2006

I've never heard of wunderground. I'll have to give them a try, but I currently use accuweather (just left their website) and they are very good at predicting even the hour it will start raining around here.

Dutch445 · Mar 20, 2006

For some interesting reading, and insight on forecasting, the weather guys have a forum that I follow,, mostly for the East/Northeast region.. it's:
EasternUS weather forum
very interesting stuff!
/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

scott_vt · Mar 20, 2006

Mornin Deereman,
My vote is for Accuweather /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif But there are alot of other decent sites around also.

scotty

deereman64 · Mar 20, 2006

Great forum. Still no politics though /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

techman · Mar 20, 2006

( Great forum. Still no politics though /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif )

And I vote to keep it that way !

paul

reb · Mar 20, 2006

I'd vote for the National Weather Service, too. I have bookmarked the page for my zip code. The forecasts are much more accurate that what I got on Accuweather. There I got the information for a town about 70 miles away and at a significantly different altitude. Accuweather is probably good if you live near one of their major reporting sites.

ericinmich · Mar 20, 2006

Good question, I was talking to a few guys at work about this same subject.

Over the last few years, I've been one to check both for future (5+) days forecast for home and vacation spots that we were going to. My opinion is that accuweather seems to do a better job of predicting the forecast (espically rain) for the future. For example, a number of times I've checked and weather.com would show rain (and a high %) where accuweather would say chance of rain, or partly cloudy with a smaller chance of rain. When the weekend or trip comes up, things were not as 'bad' as weather.com indicated.

I've not done a scientific study, but may some day. Something create an excel spreadsheet of the 15day forecast and update it every day, then recording the actual weather.

So the short answer for me is check both, but things (rain) isn't as bad as weather.com would indicate...

HammerFour · Mar 20, 2006

The thing I notice most about weather.com and 'The Weather Channel' is the 'sky is falling' method of weather prediction and weather coverage.

For instance, today they kept showing Lincoln, NE and talking up this huge amount of snowfall and how the roads were packed and treacherous. I'm not sure how they are now, but the footage they were showing showed a bit of slush on the roads and some snow falling, but by no means the end of the world as we know it.

These folks like to keep people tuned into their website and the weather channel by predicting imminent doom it seems to me. If I need a worst case prediction, I look at the weather channel, if I want an average case prediction I look at the www.noaa.gov site. WeatherUnderground seems to be ok, I haven't tried accuweather so far.

deereman64 · Mar 20, 2006

Over the end of the year holiday season I ve noticed that prior to christmas the weather man are not keen to emphasize inclement weather.. stops people shopping. After christmas though its button down the hatches.

MikePA · Mar 21, 2006

Over the end of the year holiday season I ve noticed that prior to christmas the weather man are not keen to emphasize inclement weather.. stops people shopping. 
...and did you ever notice their radar never picks up the black helicopters? /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

khd · Mar 21, 2006

I've traditionally used intellicast becuase of radar but I recently installed a pluging for Firefox called forcastfox enhanced which puts some icons down in the status bar of Firefox. Roll you mouse over an icon get current and two day forcast, regional radar and severe alerts all without leaving the page you are on. Just roll your mouse and a little window pops up. Roll off and it disappears. Uses Accuweather.

Kevin

Egon · Mar 21, 2006

I use the aching joint weather prediction channel. It's comes pretty close.

Egon /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

avorancher · Mar 21, 2006

I use some of the above, but lately I've been using this site and bookmarked my particular region. So far, it has been pretty accurate on the hour-by-hour prediction... at least within a couple hours which is better than others.

NOAA graphical forecasts