What is your favorite website to check European weather?

Comments

• AlanS

  September 2014 edited September 2014

  Going, going, gone wrote:

  I'm getting my iPad and iPhone all tuned up for our trip. Put in FlyDelta App, all the phone numbers in case of flight delays, lost luggage, lost credit cards, Tauck numbers, etc.
  Almost every day in NY I check the radar on Intellicast to see if any rain/storms are moving in. When on a river tour last year I found several radar websites but nothing as good as Intellicast. Any suggestions?
  Ed and Trudy

  
  Here is one that gets great reviews and which I have on my laptop- Weather Underground. However I found their international, at least European, forecasts were terrible!!! It really bummed me out before we left. If their forecasts had been right, we would have had rain during the entire two weeks we spent on the Alps tour! As it turned out we had one afternoon with some rain but the activity scheduled was indoors so it was no big deal. Our heads were in the clouds, however, at the summit of the Zugspitze. Accuweather may be the one with best international weather forecasts.
  
  A suggestion for where to securely store all sorts of info- credit card data, passwords, etc.- KeePass. I use it on my home computer. It is free and has a smart phone/tablet version that utilizes the same data file so you can sync all your devices. All you need to remember is one password to access the encrypted data base where you can put all your other passwords, etc.
  

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• jdurkin

  September 2014

  Going, going, gone wrote:

  When on a river tour last year I found several radar websites but nothing as good as Intellicast. Any suggestions?
  Ed and Trudy

  I've found the BBC http://www.bbc.com/weather/ very useful. You might have to search for some of the larger cities rather than the daily stops, though. A bigger, nearby city is more likely to be listed … but it worked pretty well.
  Warning: Internet connections last week were practically non-existent. Spotty didn't even come close to describing absent! I know the boffins are working on it. Hope they work it out.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Jan

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• Richardb

  September 2014

  I am in England and use the National meteorological weather site http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast.
  Just bring that up and input ant city name and it will tell you temperatures, likelihood of rain, wind strength etc. predicted almost by the hour. I use this at home and it is generally accurate. Just click on the aspect you want (precipitation etc) to get probability or just press the "more detail" box at the bottom to get all the details. You can look at weather map patterns too. Definitely helps us with packing decisions.
  This site goes up to +5 days. Care with time though. It does state UTC +/- so many hours so I assume times have been adjusted.
  Good luck
  Richard

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• jdurkin

  September 2014

  Thanks, Richard. At home I always use our own met service, http://www.bom.gov.au, but for European clothes planning I was delighted that the Beeb's weather page covered many European cities. Certainly beat trying to find every country's official site …. if they even have one! Mind you … all the crystal balls in the universe couldn't really predict, with any real accuracy, 10 days in advance of initial travel, let alone allow for early packing! Ah well, that old stalwart of seasoned travellers …. layering!
  
  Cheers,
  
  Jan

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• British

  September 2014

  Not everyone wants their private information given to strangers. I am sure there would be some unhappy people if Tauck gave out information about everyone. Since the final list of people on tours changes right up to the last minute from what I can see, I don't know how they could give an accurate list in advance. I'd love to know how late the list we are given at welcome meetings is printed.

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• jdurkin

  September 2014 edited September 2014

  Don't quote me, but I think it's about a week before departure that the list is printed. I say this because on occasion, the printed list has include names of passengers who we were told had …"only recently cancelled".
  
  I certainly agree with British about pre-depature passenger lists. There are all sorts of privacy & confidentiality issues from Tauck's point of view, let alone the particular individuals. Personally, I doubt I'd ever have travelled with Tauck in the first place if they printed pre-departure lists. That would certainly not be a company with whom I'd be happy to travel.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Jan

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• TauckTim

  September 2014

  Hi Going, going, gone,
  
  I primarily use Weather Underground like AlanS does, and domestically I have no issues. Internationally, I have found weather.com (or rather, their smartphone app) to be quite accurate. It doesn't take long to update, even if the wifi is not very strong. And yes, for privacy reasons like Jan and British spoke about, we can't give out information about the other travelers on your departure until everyone is already there -- not least because people do cancel even at the last minute, and those lists are occasionally inaccurate. We can give general information, such as the average age range of the other participants, or the age range of kids on the trip if this were a Tauck Bridges departure, but we can't give more than that, I'm afraid.
  
  I hope this helps!
  
  -Tim

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• jdurkin

  September 2014

  I always used to use Weather.com, but they seem to have stopped listing the monthly averages for foreign (non US) cities. I needed a site that could give me an idea, well in advance, of what the weather might be like. A girl need to check her travel wardrobe and/or shop well in advance! THat's how I found that the Beeb's site listed averages for many European cities.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Jan

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