Which forecast website is best?

A snowHead

Like everyone here, I regularly check the snow forecasts – in fact with about 2 ½ weeks until my first trip of the season and not a huge amount of snowfall in the 4v region, it’s the main thing I’m thinking about at the moment. Shocked

There are a number of different websites that one can consult for weather forecasts/snow predictions. The main ones I use are:

http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/snow_resorts.asp?country=Switzerland

http://www.snow-forecast.com/countries/39/resorts/J-R

http://www.meteosuisse.admin.ch/web/en/weather/detail_forecast.html

However they all have different forecasts!

While I appreciate that weather prediction is not an exact science and that all these services are using some sort of automated model to predict snowfall etc, my question is which service is most accurate? They obviously aren’t all right (as they have differing forecasts). I tend to pay most attention to Meteo Suisse, but as Snow-forecast is the most optimistic of the sites, I always wish they are right…

In your experience, which site is best?

A snowHead

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a local ski instructor recommended this one http://chamonix-meteo.com/bul/metPreMatFr.php
obviously relevant mostly to Chamonix but helpful for surrounding areas too. One of its strengths is that it gives an index of reliability. The problem with the snow-forecast style ones is that they don't - though if they're changing a good deal, and not agreeing with each other, that's a pretty fair indication that they are all making perfectly plausible but entirely different forecasts on the basis of the available data.

I find snow-forecast pretty good, as long as you can persuade yourself not to take too much notice of anything too far away. I often use the detailed two-day forecasts to help plan what to do - but I also always look at meteo france and meteo chamonix. And bear in mind that forecasts of precise quantities of precipitation should be taken only as the broadest of indicators. Anyone who has spent time in the mountains knows that you can get very different weather on two sides of a ridge.

And no, the weather forecasts aren't the first thing I look at in the morning even before I've made a cup of tea or cleaned my teeth. wink

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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1556garyt, don't worry about it but just keep in mind that any forecast for a specific area beyond about 4 days is usually just a computer's best guess of which of a multitude is scenarios might play out and changes 4 times every day anyway. Metcheck et al are therefore fantasising specifics from virtual unknowns.

The one caveat to that (and I'm not going to bother explaining why) is when a HP cell sits over Europe which has already been there a long while and is predicted to stay there a good while still, you can bet it'll stay pretty dry for another week and usually some rain will follow before the snow does.

For something more specific in the Alps though, this French site ... http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/precipitations/3h.htm ... does do a good short term precipitation analysis based on the GFS super computer model but remember that past 96 hours it's unlikely to get it right and could get it very wrong indeed.

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

After all it is free

Another vote for Chamonix Meteo. It proved very reliable last season.

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Which forecast website is best?

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