Weather forecasting blunders of late gave us reason to seek other opinions. We found that, as Bob Dylan once sang, you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.
Fed up with windbag weatherpeople on TV? This service goes right over their heads. Using data from the National Weather Service and 4,000 school-based weather stations, WeatherBug promises to put "hyper-local" weather reports on your computer screen.
www.almanac.com/weather/weather.html.
The venerable Old Farmer's Almanac gave forecasting a try. But its long-range prediction made no mention of snow for early March in our area. Wrong.
While orthodox forecasters say chaos theory makes predictions beyond two weeks impossible, Weatherplanner offers predictions a year in advance. Would you set a wedding date by it? The company behind this site even advises Wal-Mart and other stores on matters such as when to stock extra snow shovels or air conditioners.
The National Weather Service supplies most of the raw data that everyone else uses to make predictions. We got engrossed with the site's many maps and satellite images and a slide show of dramatic tornado photos on the link for the Storm Prediction Center.
These guys are great. The user-friendly site by the Weather Channel has on-demand video forecasts, pollen and flu reports, and even flight-arrival information for the weather-worried.
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.