Are weather forecasts a work of fiction?

I find the Met Office app pretty good to be honest but used to live in a tiny village where the weather was in a sort of "pocket" because of the lie of the land and you never knew what to expect!

In fact, one winter about 1/3 of the village was iced over for days longer than the rest.

It's much the same here in Central Europe. The TV last night predicted rain and thunderstorms here all day today. Not one of the 3 weather apps on our phones mentioned it at all, although I wouldn't be surprised if the heat didn't erupt into a storm at some point.

The day has now settled down to hot but calm and I have no headache as harbinger of thunder.

I've heard that when you see a weather report saying 20% chance of rain, what it actually means is that 20% of that area will have rain.

I always took it to be a small likelihood of rain over the whole area.

We have an amateur weather forecast page on Facebook, which is usually pretty accurate, so for local forecasts, I rely on them, rather than the TV stations or the Met Office.

If I got it wrong at work as often as the TV weather forecasters do, I'd be out on my ear!

I agree Monica, it seems the more advanced the equipment the less accurate the forecast. We rely on our local farmers who seem to know all he signs. We can see Holyhead Mountain in the distance, we now know that when there is a ring of cloud hugging the top we can expect unsettled and mostly damp weather for a week and when there is a hazy ring around the bottom we can expect a long spell of dry and settled weather.

Unfortunately, the land round us is as flat as a pancake and any distance views are cut by trees, so I cannot use the 'mountain' test.

I refer to my Amazon echo for the weather forecast. It is almost always correct even to the time rain will begin to fall.
My DD looks at the weather for Norway which, according to her, is pretty accurate for our area of northern England.

We have our own weather where we live!

Yesterday was clear sunny skies here but my friend 15 miles away had torrential rain...

I think summer weather is just bonkers and runs around like an angry toddler breaking things for no reason

I’m sure your local farmers will have some tips Monica, my mountain tale was just one example. They seem to have lots of clues, the way a certain plant faces or opens in the morning, behaviour of the animals or even a feeling in their bones.

Think you're right about summer weather, VioletSky, even before climate change became so obvious. Of course it's even worse now...

It's a great comparison with an angry toddler. Thank you for that mental picture!

Violetsky perfect!

I think my cone predicts the weather better than the BBC ?