patentcad

I ride daily in all kinds of weather, so knowing what's predicted for the next morning with SOME DEGREE OF ACCURACY is critical. I do use Yahoo's local weather, but lately I find it's so general and painfully inaccurate that I've had to find another source. I have found that in www.accuweather.com. They have broken it down to hourly forcasts for the next day (including projected wind speed/direction hour by hour) that I find helpful and generally quite accurate.

Tomorrow is a perfect example: Yahoo says it will be sunny here and windy with a WNW wind @ 15-25mph. That's really a wicked wind to ride in. But Accuweather says the wind will actually be very mellow in the early AM (I'm starting out @ 6AM). And will be from the SW and gradually shift around to the W and then the WNW as it gains in speed. Projected wind speeds in the AM: 2mph (@ 6AM) to 11mph (@ 11AM). That will be quite different from '15-25mph', and the wind direction is different in the AM as well, quite important on the long ride I'll be doing.

Just a word of experience from a bike weenie who has been forced to be a weather weenie. I do use Yahoo every day - for the radar picture. Other than that it's about as useless as weather forecasting gets. Try Accuweather my fellow weenies.

daytonian

I look at local on the 8's on weather channel. I looked forward all week to group ride tonight and it never fails, 11 am sunshine, 3pm the fucin clouds roll in, 5pm get off work, 5:30 my wife "honey your not going out into that, there's a tornado watch", 5:45 rain and thunder, 6:00 me on BF wishing I was in the wind

TheKillerPenguin

I use noaa.gov and weather.com in conjunction.

patentcad

I agree that the local newscasts have better weather accuracy than Yahoo. Just trying to suggest an Internet weather forecast resource that I have found to be quite reliable. That hourly forecast has been remarkably spot-on lately for me. Which is always hit or miss I suppose. But they seem to be doing something right over there @ Accuweather.

blandin

+1 on accuweather.com. I've relied on the hourly predictions for the last year and half, its made my rides much more predictable.

johnny99

I've found Accuweather's quality to be somewhat mixed. They are fairly accurate in many urban areas, but they can be pretty erratic in the rural areas where I like to ride. The National Weather Service is usually more reliable overall.

Jakey

Heres tommorow... sweet!

Hourly Weather Details
Saturday Morning, April 15
5am 6am 7am 8am 9am 10am 11am Noon
RealFeel® 34° F 33° F 33° F 35° F 36° F 36° F 38° F 38° F
Dewpoint 41° F 41° F 42° F 43° F 44° F 44° F 44° F 45° F
Humidity 93% 93% 93% 94% 94% 94% 94% 94%
Wind Direction S S S S S S S S
Wind Speed 13 mph 15 mph 17 mph 17 mph 17 mph 17 mph 16 mph 18 mph
Precip Type Rain Rain -- Rain -- Rain Rain Rain

jjmolyet

noaa.gov and wunderground.com

531Aussie

We're pretty lucky with this kinda stuff

This radar is very accurate with rainfall

https://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR022.loop.shtml

And this one shows cloud cover

https://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDE00902.loop.shtml

DXchulo

If I use anything I use wunderground.com. I quit looking at weather.com a long time ago because they've been wrong so many times. I usually don't look at the weather until after a ride just to see how hard the wind was. A lot of times my perception is way off.

Anyway, I find looking at the weather to be more frustrating than helpful. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best, and your ride will be more enjoyable.

Portis

I like the National Weather Service's Hourly Weather Graph.

The wind feature is invaluable. Look at the link and you will see that much of tomorrow will be a nightmare for a cyclist as it relates to wind.

big john

The local airport has a good site, It's NOAA and up to the minute.

Machka 

I use a combination of these two sites:


https://www.theweathernetwork.com
https://weather.ec.gc.ca/canada_e.html

I've found the second to be slightly more accurate than the first, especially when it comes to current conditions, but in general, if you combine the two forecasts and take the worst possible scenario, that's the most accurate one.

ccdisce

patentcad,

I use 'Desktop Weather' from weather.com and customize it to the area that I will be riding that day. It has hourly wind forecasts, updated 600 mile doppler radar scan as well as weather alerts along with the temps.

cydewaze

Around here we have another name for Accuweather. We call it "Accu-guess" because most of the time you can guess the weather without even looking out the window and you'll get it closer than Accuweather. They pull around a 40% accuracy rating in this area. Weather.com is a little better, but not much.

I guess the main reason I prefer weather.com is not so much the accuracy, but the reduced "lag". If Accuweather says it's currently 65, that usually means it was 65 three hours ago. For some reason the "current conditions" always seems a bit behind. This is mostly annoying if you use the ForecastFox extension to Firefox. The extension uses Accuweather, so the "Now:" label should be called "Three hours ago:"

I won't even mention the "High today: 86. Currently: 88" thing it does.

Stv

I use this site daily for immediate weather predictions and for one to six hours out. Lets me know exactly what is blowing in my way and what is actually going on above or below my location, what's going to drop on me and what is going to miss me and by how much. Although I'm in Toronto, I focus on the Detroit station (midwest). I set the site to watch the prevailing westerlies blowing in.


https://www.intellicast.com/IcastPage...y&prodnav=none

For the local overhead Canuck GTA info I use:

https://www.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/ra..._e.html?id=WSO

bluecd

i like the NOAA site also especially for windspeed & gusts. here's a link for NY. https://www.erh.noaa.gov/ndfd/graphic...s/okx.php#tabs. just mouse over the catagory & time on the left and the graph to the right will change accordingly.

Katrogen

Was just thinking about this issue this morning. I have a pattern right now of rainy Saturday weather and our cycling team cancels in most chances of rain. I can't get ahold of anybody on my team sometimes and so I get very iffy sittuations on whether they are going out or not. Weather websites help alot but sometimes I will miss a ride because the weather is better then predicted.

I use weatherunderground.com, weather.com

SteveE

The main thing I care about is rain. I find that using the animated doppler weather maps from the Weather Channel via Yahoo! lets me predict the next few hours fairly reasonably. I look at the speed and direction of precipitation and make a top of the head calculation if I'm gonna' get wet or not. That and looking out the window.

copper RS

Accuweather claims its raining right now at my house, when its bright and sunny. I wouldnt call that accurate at all.

robtown

I use noaa.gov and the weatherbug for the high school 1/8 mile from my house.

worker4youth

I use accuweather.com and weather.com together. I've found that accuweather.com a *little* more accurate than weather.com, especially when it comes to rain.

patentcad

We're about 60 miles from midtown Manhattan. Not an urban or traditional suburban area (more like the exurbs or fringe 'burbs) but it's quite accurate for Chester, NY. FWIW.

DieselDan

I use accuweather.com with this nice little browser extension with Mozilla Firefox in the lower right corner of my browser window. Since I'm only 3 miles from the reporting weather station, it is pretty darn accurate. With a high speed cable modem, I check right before I ride while getting dressed.

tippy

usairnet air sports launch codes.
Mainly for air sports (ultra lights, parachutists, etc) but works great for anything sport that is weather and especially wind dependant. It only "forecasts" out three days but any forecast farther than 3 days out is just a "foreguess" anyway.

Here's the usairnet link for Decatur, AL
https://usairnet.com/cgi-bin/launch/c...t=Get+Forecast

Good Luck,
d.tipton