RetireJapan

For rain forecasts I find the rain radar on Yahoo weather to be extremely accurate - though it is a radar so not really surprising. You can see the rain rolling in on the animation and it usually starts and stops within a few minutes of the time it says. I find Yahoo weather to be pretty good overall.

For stargazing (cloud forecasts) I've been using one of the functions on NHK's local weather site. Very good so far.

Deep Blue wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2024 2:25 am Another vote for hopeless here. Half of my children’s activities cancelled this weekend due to the typhoon (Taiko -indoors!!!!, football and tennis). Yesterday was bright sunshine, blue skies and hot as heck. Today is cloudy but dry. Utterly ridiculous.

That is a function of conservatism and risk aversion as much as the quality of the forecasting.
And typhoons often change course as well.

Japan is, I think, also putting more energy into earthquake detection and monitoring than any other country as well, but predicting earthquakes is far from an exact science.

beanhead wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2024 11:22 am

Deep Blue wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2024 2:25 am Another vote for hopeless here. Half of my children’s activities cancelled this weekend due to the typhoon (Taiko -indoors!!!!, football and tennis). Yesterday was bright sunshine, blue skies and hot as heck. Today is cloudy but dry. Utterly ridiculous.

That is a funciion of conservatism and risk aversion as much as the quality of the forecasting.
And typhoons often change course as well.

Helping to run a kids school, you have to give people plenty of notice when you cancel things, so it is generally better to cancel unnecessarily (as long as you don't do it too often) than have to cancel suddenly at short notice when staff and kids are already en route and potentially in danger.

Football and tennis are cancelled with 30-45 minutes notice, but the rain they must have been expecting never transpired.

Using tenki.jp and its terrific App on iOS. Love the hourly rain forecast re probability AND mm amount. Also enjoy the rain radar with its projection calculation.