The Weather Websites I Use

This is my every once-in-a-while weather website recommendations. These are not the only sites with this data, just the ones I favor.

I’ve been forecasting the weather over thirty years. There have been a boatload of changes and improvements. We used to spend a fortune acquiring data at Channel 8. Now it’s all online and free.

This is my every once-in-a-while weather website recommendations. These are not the only sites with this data, just the ones I favor.

HRRR Model Fields   ExperimentalI use a lot of government data and government sites. They are not the splashiest, but they’ve got just about everything.

For models like the GFS or NAM.

For the short term, high res HRRR. The user facing side of this site is awful, but the HRRR is worth using.

NWS EDDFor greatly customizable maps on the fly, it’s EDD, again from NOAA. EDD has the feel of a freight elevator hung on a building under construction. Nearly everything works, but you’ve got to watch your step. EDD often requires a page reload to clear its foggy head.

A lot of what EDD does Wundermap does too, plus it has the European model! Wundermap is from Wunderground, weather geeks online since the Internet was young. They’re now owned by the Weather Channel’s parent company.

Severe Weather, SPC. The mesoscale analysis section of the site is crazy. You can delicately slice and dice the atmosphere looking for the signs of severe weather.

An admission. I don’t understand the significance of everything they make available.

For tropical weather I hit Dr. Bob Hart’s site at Florida State for individual models and Wisconsin for spaghetti plots.

The most valuable item from the Hurricane Center is the tech discussion. The lead forecaster describes the factors weighed making the forecast. It’s a different url for each storm, but you can find the discussion from their home.

By the way, for anything… and I mean anything that comes from the weather service in text form, I run to the Iowa Environmental Mesonet site.

I wish stuff would come faster. I wish maps would get larger. So many are still sized for a world where 800 pixels across was wide.

3 thoughts on “The Weather Websites I Use”

  1. Say there, weather-dude (apt for your current residence, I think?); where is the best place for me to research what El Nino will do for Connecticut, should it form as it seems to be doing? I seem to remember that the El Nino/La Nina systems (events, phenomena) result in warmer/dryer, or colder wetter, or some such combination. I’m not entirely confident in Wikipedia, and it’s not so CT specific in any event. Any thoughts?

    73,
    Steve
    W1KF

  2. Thanks. Hope you get what you (and the rest of the western basin) need this winter. I could live with warm and dry back here. Last year was, well, difficult.

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