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Forgive me for using the expertise of this forum for my own personal situations but I have a personal outdoor event I have been planning for this Friday in Manhattan. A lot of time and preparation went into this and the forecasts so far are giving me all sorts of things across the board.
Weather.gov gives Fri/Sat/Sun a 30-40% chance of rain each day. Weather.com gives Friday a whopping 70% chance. Accuweather has "mostly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm", 56% chance.
All I can deduce from this variation in forecasts is that Friday will most likely be cloudy, but what about the rain? In my experience anything hovering around 50% tends to not happen at all but... I don't know. Is it going to rain and if so, is it going to be prolonged downpours or a spattering here or there?
Yes you are correct about what Accuweather is predicting. All I can say is that you follow the forecast till Friday and see what happens then If their still pedicting thunderstorms check what hours they may hapoen.
Five days out is still kind of long to be reliable tbh. The temperatures are probably accurate but the precip chances will likely fluctuate still. 2-3 days is a lot more reliable, IMO.
Any forecasts more than a week out are going to be less accurate than climatological forecasts on average. This leads me to wonder why commercial weather forecasting sites like AccuWeather even bother providing forecasts up to two weeks out, considering we'd be better off just looking at the historical averages at that point. ( oh, they had 45 day forecast as well Use AccuWeather's 45-Day Forecast to Plan for Labor Day, Fall Events
I usually follow the radar map, and watch how things are moving/developing. Most are based on US NWS - The Weather Service is pretty accurate for the most part, and that's because they consistently try to provide the most accurate forecasts possible. National Weather Service
However, most weather forecasters will err toward predicting more rain than there really is. You know - when forecasters say there won't be rain and it ends up raining (= ruined outdoors event!); but when they predict rain and it ends up not raining, we'll shrug it off and count ourselves lucky
TV guys are the worst - they don't even try, because they figure the public won't believe them anyway... lol
So, stick with weather.gov and hope for the best! As you already noticed, weather.com often forecasts that there's a higher probability of raining than there really is.
Any forecasts more than a week out are going to be less accurate than climatological forecasts on average. This leads me to wonder why commercial weather forecasting sites like AccuWeather even bother providing forecasts up to two weeks out, considering we'd be better off just looking at the historical averages at that point. ( oh, they had 45 day forecast as well Use AccuWeather's 45-Day Forecast to Plan for Labor Day, Fall Events
I usually follow the radar map, and watch how things are moving/developing. Most are based on US NWS - The Weather Service is pretty accurate for the most part, and that's because they consistently try to provide the most accurate forecasts possible. National Weather Service
However, most weather forecasters will err toward predicting more rain than there really is. You know - when forecasters say there won't be rain and it ends up raining (= ruined outdoors event!); but when they predict rain and it ends up not raining, we'll shrug it off and count ourselves lucky
TV guys are the worst - they don't even try, because they figure the public won't believe them anyway... lol
So, stick with weather.gov and hope for the best! As you already noticed, weather.com often forecasts that there's a higher probability of raining than there really is.
Hah, well that would certainly explain why they kept predicting a 100% downpour today in NYC and we got a misting. I guess misting is still rain though. I have noticed a pattern of it more often than not NOT raining when they say it will.
And yes, I definitely have noticed weather.com just goes above and beyond with everything including their fonts. Sheesh!
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