With summer now in full swing (even in the UK), finding out what the weather is doing before planning the week ahead with the family becomes even more important. I've been investigating all the different ways in which you can now get a UK weather forecast using your S60 or UIQ smartphone. And nearly all of them are free.
Read on in the full article.
Take a look at M!Weather. It's native S60 freeware.
Url?
Yup, here it is:
wxw.ubahnstation.net/projects/mweather/mweather.html
You missed that. 😃
Weather reports seem to be the most overlooked "killer app" of mobile phones. I know many people who aren't tech fans at all, but they regularly check their mobiles for news and weather.
If someone could make a quick and easy app for checking the TV schedules, I bet that would be popular too.
Another one, not free:
Foreca FlashWeather
h t t p://corporate.foreca.com/en/products/wireless-mobile/flashweather-mobile/
..and the free, little brother: Foreca Widget
w w w.widsets.com <- sry for spaces, but I'm not allowed to post URLs.. 😊
I'm using the second one for Italian forecasts, and I'm very happy with it. I presume there's UK coverage, but I've not checked.
What you don't mention is the accuracy of the data source for these weather apps. I'm a bit of a weather geek, and spent some months comparing various sources and came to the conclusion that in fact none of them are particularly accurate, but the plain old Met Office:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html
gets closer than most.
(Even the BBC, which uses Met Office data, is less accurate because they only pull data from the Met once every 24 hours, but the Met updates every few hours throughout the day.)
The US-originated weather data is usually trash, so it's no good having a pretty face on your weather app if the forecast it gives you is wrong.
"came to the conclusion that in fact none of them are particularly accurate, but the plain old Met Office gets closer than most."
Yeah... weather forecasting is a bit of a dismal science, isn't it? You just cannot rely on a weather forecast from anyone, they're always too subject to change at short notice.
The best that forecasters can do is give warnings about potential threats, especially things like hurricanes so that people have time to evacuate and/or board up their houses. Even then though... anyone remember Michael Fish in 1987?
krisse wrote:The best that forecasters can do is give warnings about potential threats, especially things like hurricanes so that people have time to evacuate and/or board up their houses. Even then though... anyone remember Michael Fish in 1987?
BBC meteorologist Michael Fish drew sharp criticism for reporting several hours before the storm hit, in seemingly flippant fashion: "Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way� well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't". In fact his comments about a hurricane had nothing to do with the UK; they referred to Florida and were linked to a news story that immediately preceded the weather bulletin, but have been so widely misreported that the British public remain convinced they referred to the approaching storm. According to Michael Fish, the woman in question was actually a colleague's mother who was about to go on holiday in the Caribbean and had called regarding the hurricane to see if it would be safe to travel.
Fish went on to warn viewers in the UK to "batten down the hatches", saying it would be "very windy" across the south of England, but predicted that the storm would move further south along the English Channel and the British mainland would escape the worst effects. The remainder of his warning is frequently left out of re-runs which only adds to the public's misrepresentation of his forecasting that evening.
His analysis has been defended by weather experts. In particular, the lack of a weather reporting ship in the southwest of England, due to Met Office cutbacks, meant the only manner of tracking the storm was by using satellite data (automatic buoys had not been invented at the time). The storm was also a highly unusual occurrence and therefore very difficult to predict. Even if Fish had been talking about the approaching storm, he would still have been technically correct in his statement, as the storm of 1987 was neither tropical or post-tropical in nature, and therefore could not possibly be a hurricane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1987#Michael_Fish_controversy
Does anyone know the source used by WorldMate?
Is it my impression or their provided forecast for Helsinki is very often not accurate?
I'm little by little stop using it...
Ahaa, I never knew that Mwongozi! You learn something new every day...
My deepest apologies to Mr Fish!
The reason I mentioned it was mainly because the BBC itself frequently plays that exact same clip as if it was discussing UK weather, many many many times.
Whatever he said about it being windy though, the Met Office clearly didn't predict the severity of the storm, otherwise they would have given much much more explicit warnings not only to the public but to each other.
I remember someone from the Met Office saying in a documentary that most of their staff couldn't get into the BBC the next morning, and the forecasters who were already at TV Centre had to work extra long shifts so they looked rather bedraggled on their broadcasts that day.
"Even if Fish had been talking about the approaching storm, he would still have been technically correct in his statement, as the storm of 1987 was neither tropical or post-tropical in nature, and therefore could not possibly be a hurricane."
Whatever the technical definition of the word "hurricane", the storm was clearly a very significant meterological event, it would have been nice to have had clear warnings about it! 😊
It ripped apart huge chunks of the country in a way that storms hadn't for decades beforehand. There was a large tree in our street that had stood there for about 50 years which got blown over, for example.
Speaking personally, there was no school because most of the teachers hadn't managed to get through the storm damage, something which I don't remember ever happening to me before or since. The loss to the economy from damage and workers not getting in must have been significant too.
We need to start a campaign to clear Michaels name.
That rymes as well 😊
Zuber
Hi all,
I agree with the first poster for me M Weather is my favourite and gets it's info from Yahoo, what i particularly like about M Weather that i have never been able to do with any of the others is to select my exact location not just the City. I also prefer to use the manual update option although it isn't always able to retrieve the information which can be a pain. When i had my E90 i used Worldmate and whilst it was quite basic IMO i did like the fact it would read out the report a couple of times a day.
Marc
Hi Steve,
Thought I'd blog about the weather at Taptu dot com slash blog, because this is so on topic considering the completely pants weather we've had so far this summer.
On the desktop, I'm very partial to MetCheck myself, but never thought of trying it on mobile, so good find! 😊
Cheers,
Vero