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MAXIMOL
4th Jun 2002, 21:19
Does anybody know of any websites that give weather forcasts for more than just the week ahead?

flyby_kiwi
4th Jun 2002, 21:29
1. No I dont sorry.

2. I think you may have a bit if a mission on your hands trying to find out the weather a week in advance as its hard enough predicting what it will be like in two days time -
Tho admitedly depending where you are in the world it may be possible eg. New Zealand for the next two weeks will no doubt be along the lines of Broken cloud 1500ft, moderate showers of rain, 3k's vis temp 9 D/point 6 etc etc :(

PaperTiger
4th Jun 2002, 22:50
http://www.weather.com extends general (non-aviation) forecasts out to 10 days. Forecast may be an optimistic term though for most locations.

WX Man
5th Jun 2002, 11:10
Beyond 7-10 days you're into the realms of climate forcasting rather than weather forecasting. The difference between the two is that wx forecasting takes present situations and applies known mathematical translations (based on theory, observed phenomena, experience of past conditions and, to a certain degree, common sense) to these to produce what is hoped is an accurate forecast.

Climate forecasting takes into account variations in climatic indeces such as the QBO (Quasi-Biennial Oscillation), ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation), NAOI (North Atlantic Oscillation Index) and a whole host of other TLA (Three Letter Abbreviation) indeces.

Because climate prediction is commercially very valuable (eg to supermarkets, for their ice cream, BBQ, and cold tinny needs; and to farmers etc) the chances of finding good, detailed climatic predictions for free are small (if you do, please tell us about it!). However some the University of East Anglia are big into climatology, but their research is largely focussed on past climate change not climate prediction. They do, nevertheless have a pretty good selection of links (see http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/other.htm ), however to interpret some of the data you can get off those links you will need to be fairly au-fait with climate and weather forcing mechanisms.

But if you want a general, less specific idea of the weather, try http://www.weatheraction.com/ . This is the website of Piers Corbyn, who uses sunspots to predict the weather. A lot of people discredit his theories, but the evidence (i.e. the statistics)that support a relationship between sunspots and climate phenomena is pretty difficult to ignore, whether you think the guy's a loon or not. Me? I think the guy's a genius, and won't have anyone say otherwise, but a lot of people think he "saw something nasty in the woodshed".