snow-forecast.com- how accurate??

A snowHead

been wondering for a while now- just how accurate is this website. It seems to change its mind alot-any thoughts Puzzled

A snowHead

HARRYMAC2702, It changes like the weather rolling eyes

. I used to subscribe, but to be honest there are far more accurate and free sites around.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

HARRYMAC2702, They did have a reputation a couple of years ago, deserved in my opinion, of over-estimating the amount of snow that would fall. Apparently they've changed their model slightly, so a few people have said that they're a bit more realistic for snow depths now. They use the same meteo data (GFS) that are quoted here on snowHeads by a number of people.

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Floppy the Snotman, can you give us the url's pls? Just subsribed now for a month Crying or Very sad

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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rob@rar, ill give you that one wink

brian

HARRYMAC2702, you've seen the chat about GFS, yeah ? This is the Global Forecast System model and is provided free by the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

What those clever b's at snow-forecast do is take this free output, apply it to a map so they can guess the snowline and then sell it to you.

After all it is free

HARRYMAC2702,
My favourite is http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/ani/gfs/

You have to click the drop down boxes for whatever weather info you are looking for, but it will help you view e.g precipitation and temperature side by side, by scrolling down with your mouse over each time period. do it quickly and it produces an animation.

I also like http://www.avalanche-net.com/meteo/gfs/affiche_region.php?heure=6&Departement=74&TypeCarte=Previ
click on the weather symbol nearest to your resort

There are loads more which some others will give you.

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brian, take it your not a fan then? Can you give us the gfs website pls. French and swiss alps look set for a fall on frinite/sat. Whats your thoughts on the amount etc. Cheers Puzzled

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snow reports

I do find them accurate with a few caveats....

a. The closer you get, the more accurate it becomes, as Brian said it's based on models which jump around alot!

b. Check with other website, and you get a "picture" of what may occer

I do find that they are more "user friendly" to read than the GFS models.......

Cheers,

Greg

I've found that they over-estimate the snow quantities, but obviously haven't checked this year yet - will see next week in Tignes whether they over-estimated or not.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Snow forecast have downgraded their snowfall AGAIN with now just a light covering. Ah well maybe next time.....

A snowHead

HARRYMAC2702, I got to the point last season where I was convinced that there were two people (at least) updating the forecast on Snow Forcast who disagreed completely with each other and would change the predictions to their own prefered model whenever they came on to do their shift!! They seemed to be a lot more acurate at the start of the season than over the peak times by which time if you wanted to know what was going to happen the next day they were reasonably accurate - although to be honest you could probably tell what was likely to happen the next day by looking out of your window yourself!! wink

brian

katski, 4 actually wink

The data input into the forecasts changes on each run as follows:

00z - Weather buoy, satellite data, shipping data, country data, NOAA data
06Z - Weather buoy, satellite data, shipping data
12Z - Shipping data, Satellite data ONLY
18Z - Weather buoy, satellite data, shipping data, country data, NOAA data

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

HARRYMAC2702, bear in mind that the point of snow-forecast seems to be coming up with a single "headline figure" for snowfall in 8 hour segements.

This can never be accurate. Take an example where you look out of the window, and see a dirty great snowcloud headed your way. Using your meteorological readings you determine there's a 50% chance it'll hit you and a 50% chance it'll pass by the side. If it hits you it'll dump 20cm snow. But you have to come up with a single figure for the website. What do you do? Put in 10cm?

This seems to be the root of snow-forecast's overestimation. There's loads of 1cm/2cm/3cm predictions which turn out to be 0cm. So I'm guessing these are where the model chucks out a 10% chance of a decent snowfall which appears on the site as 1/2/3cm and then 90% of the time never happens.

In terms of underestimation, they seem to be under on big snowfalls (say >25cm in 8 hours).

Having said all that, I like it. It gives a very user friendly quick idea of what's going to happen, and i like the multicoloured maps of the wider regions. And given the inherent flaws of the "headline figure" approach, and the fact that changes in the numbers are then very obvious, they seem to do a decent job.

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Not be confused with snowforecast.com... wink

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

speaking of multicoloured maps, we've a Positive NAO at 850 mb Crying or Very sad

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Hmm, snow forecast for each of the next 6 days in Zermatt Little Angel

Hopefully that will keep going till xmas Wink

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I notice that they now do a 2, 3 and 6 day report.

The main difference is that the new 2 day forecast has 8 increments in which they are wrong rather than just the 3 incorrect guesses beforehand.

After all it is free

I,ve allways found the US Airforce (europe) weather to be very accurate. your see there predicting snow in Southern Germany towards the end of the week.

http://ows.public.sembach.af.mil/

Thanks for that link stanton - this chart looks particularly good - although it's slow to load.

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PhillipStanton, said

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Having scoured the met sites this morning for data on Tignes there is a wide disparity. Metcheck seems to suggest heavy snow, falling into tomorrow, NOAA seems to suggest light snow today, nothing tomorrow, Snow-forecast suggests 8cm of snow today, sunny tomorrow and finally Tignes.net suggests 'little showers', sunny tomorrow. If they all use pretty much the same raw data how can they all be so wide apart over a two day forecast? Difficult to tell what is actually happening as the webcams are blurry with cloud at the moment. Life was easier without the internet. Then I used to just turn up. If the snow was good then ski, if bad then drink. Perhaps I need a return to the old days!

brian

BGA, because GFS updates every 6 hours and can change radically from run to run. I think snow-forecast update twice daily, not sure about metcheck.

If you want the latest run, go to

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsgfsmeur.html

and click on 3h Niederschlag (precipitation). Tignes is right at the bottom of that map, close to the French-Italian border.

The contours show the height of the freezing level (0 deg isotherm), and the numbers in the green/blue bits represent precip over the 3 hour period in mm (1 mm rain is approx. 1cm undrifted snow).

Also remember that GFS is a global forecast model, not really designed for short term localised precipitation forecasts (let's face it snow-forecast only use it cos it's free rolling eyes

) .

Thanks brian, seems freezing level if just below 2000m and about 2cm snow over the relevant period. Is there an English language site that gives that info?

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

I have been to Val Thorens earlier this month, snow-forecast.com predicted snow every day and I mean EVERY day. What was the weather, sunny days for the whole duration I was there. How can a weather forecast website get it so wrong? Its not the first time its happened, last year in La Plagne it was exactly the same they grossly over estimated the snow fall!

I wont be bothering with this web site anymore as I'm convinced they just make it up; a complete fraud of a web site.

A snowHead

Way to wake up a 12 year-old thread!

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

As with the Met Office in the UK, I've always found that the people who collect and own the base data are the best people to go to - everyone else is just an intermediary, re-presenting the same information. So I use the corresponding apps from MetéoFrance in France and MetéoSwiss in Switzerland. The MetéoSwiss app has a good animation which shows snow as well as rain for the next 24h.

And if the Swiss National Weather Bureau aren't confident about predicting mountain snow more than 24h in advance, then it tells you a lot about how accurate some of the 5-day weather sites are likely to be.

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What's the best one for Austria? I've tried using Bergfex but it seems to be even less reliable than SnowForecast!

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...alongside Suisse meteo we also use the satellite pictures on meteox (...plus a simple barometer when we are in country). Meteox allows you to see the density of the cloud cover and where it’s coming from - important for climbing since it may be sunny now but you want to know what the next 20 hours is going to bring.

Help!!

snow-forecast.com- how accurate??

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