cessnagirl
I don't think it's as bad as you think.
Although I do agree a 30 hour forecast is probably a bridge too far for an accurate forecast they are updated every 6 hours so the first 9 hours of you 30 hour forecast will be as accurate as a short TAF.
The old Long TAF's used to be issued 7 hours in advance of the TAF starting. Example issued at 16:30 Valid 0024. So the old long TAF was always forecasting 31.5 hours ahead and even the first part of the 24 hour forecast was 7 hours out of date!!
Under the new system all TAF's are issued less than an hour before they come into effect.
Met Office: Changes to Civilian TAF issue/validity times
The only thing that's gone backwards is that a short TAF used to be issued every 3 hours where as the airfields which only get Long TAF's will now only get an update every 6 hours. That said, if there's a significant change to the forecast the met office include the statement
All TAFs will be monitored and may be re-issued as Amendments at any time.
There used to be plenty of occasions when a 9 hour TAF was not long enough for a particular operation so we had to look at the 24 hour TAF. So a more accurate (because it was issued later) Long TAF is very welcome in my opinion.
You soon get used to the extra digits in TAF.
All in All, I think it's a win win situation.
Folk just don't like change
