Better weather forecasting
I had the great opportunity to listen to a talk by a weather forecaster last week. My mate in Melbourne calls them weather guessers, and of course the forecasters always cop a serve when weather isn't as predicted. But as explained though Tasmania is one of the harder places to predict. Hill, mountains, inlets and geographical forms can turn a predicted prevailing northerly breeze on top of a hill into a variable or light southerly at the base.All weather forecasters use computer models and software to help and fine tune predictions. However there are quite a few different models and these will usually come up with a different prediction for the same inputs. The models include The Operational Consensus Forecast (OCF), Water and the Land (WATL) forecast and the Global Forecast System (GFS).
For years I have only looked at the Bureau of Meterology website www.bom.gov.au, but there are others that I now also do a comparison with. My most recent favourites are www.weatherzone.com.au and www.ozforecast.com.au
I love the historical and extremes of weather and the easy navigation of weatherzone, but ozforecast has become my favourite. Just put in the town you want and away you go. On one page you can see a radar image that shows rainfall and wind, plus a forecast and the predictions for the three different weather prediction models OCF, WATL and GFS. If you look at all these together and they tell you similar things is does give you the best options yet of getting the weather as promised. An easy way to find these are go to www.tasfish.com and clip the top link to tides, weather etc.
