ONLINE | Yes, a tropical weather site can show you some good winter weather models
By the time you are reading this it will be December, so the weather article should be the usual monthly weather roundup and then our look ahead to see what the next month might hold in store for us. As most of you probably already know, I have to write these articles well ahead of time. This means for me there are still several days left in November — too many for me to write, in good conscience, the monthly weather roundup.
Instead, one of the questions I probably get asked the most is this: What weather websites do I use the most?
bezte.ca/weather
The hands-down winner is my own website. After more years than I care to say, I finally updated my website about eight months ago. Now, I am not a web developer by any means, but I used to do some dabbling in HTML coding years ago. So, how hard could it be to update my website? A lot harder than I thought! Lucky for me, I am pretty good at looking at examples of coding used on other websites and figuring things out, at least to some degree. Using that knowledge and some good website-building lesson sites, I think I patched together a half-decent website. Oh, I should mention, that my website on a smartphone is a little pared down compared to a computer or tablet, though most of the links are there.
In all honesty, while I like sharing my data with whomever wants it or finds it useful, my main purposes for the site are to check on the weather conditions at my place when I am not around, and to have easy access to the weather website links that I use the most. So, besides my website, here is a list of my favourite sites that I find most useful, along with a brief description of them.
www.tropicaltidbits.com
While it might sound strange that a tropical weather website is my go-to site, what I find useful on the site is the link to the forecast models. This gives you access to all the available weather models and lays it out in what I find to be a very easy-to-use and understandable manner. I mostly use the Global and Climate links on the Weather Model page. Under Global you will find the GFS weather model, which I think is one of the more accurate models. You can also find a link to the CMC weather model, which is the Canadian model. This model can be more accurate when it comes to weather patterns originating out of the north and in the winter. The Climate link gives you access to several medium- and long-range weather models. The easiest way to see what is available on this website is to check it out and play around with all the different types of maps that are available. The links on my website under Wx Models will take you to the weather models I use the most on this site.
www.weather.cod.edu
This weather website is brought to you by the College of DuPage. I mostly use this site for satellite images. On my website the links would be found under Sat./Radar. On the DuPage site the satellite link is found under Weather Analyses Tools. I am all for having a lot of choice and with this site that is exactly what you get for satellite images. There are 16 different bands or wavelengths that allow you to view what is going on in the atmosphere above North America, ranging from visible and infrared, to vegetation or snow and ice.
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp2
This link can be found under my Fcst./Sv. Wx menu and is called “14-day outlook.” This link loads three images of North America. The first two images show the forecasted mean temperature for each of the next two weeks. The final image shows how those temperatures will compare to average. This can give you a quick look at what the upcoming temperature trend might be. You usually have to check this link every day to see if forecasts are holding their predictions from day to day, or if they are changing dramatically. Dramatic changes over a short period of time tell you there is not a lot of consistency in the weather models and we may be seeing a change in the overall weather pattern.
https://kamala.cod.edu/Canada/latest.focn45.CWWG.html
The link on my website for this site is called Discussion and is found under Local Wx. As the name implies, this is the significant weather discussion issued by the Prairie and Arctic Storm Prediction Centre. The discussion gives a bit of a deeper insight into the weather and thought processes of the people creating the forecasts across the Prairies. Sometimes it’s a little short and lacking information, while other times it goes into great detail. Either way, it’s almost always an interesting read.
https://weather.gc.ca
Good old Environment Canada. I still like using it for forecasts, local conditions, severe weather watches and warnings and weather radar. I don’t always agree with its forecasts, especially after looking at the weather models myself, but I find it helps to either confirm my own forecast thoughts or it makes me take a second look at the weather models. As for watches and warnings: as it is the one issuing them, it only makes sense to go directly to the source.
I don’t have room to discuss all of the links I have under “Misc. Wx.” Maybe we’ll look at those in an upcoming article. Until then, have fun checking out all the links mentioned above and be sure to let me know if you have any questions.
