NOAA/NWS are certainly good and I do use it a lot but WeatherUnderground (wunderground.com) uses computerized, very local, personal weather stations. It still amazes me how much of a weather variation we get in upstate NY within as little as 10 miles and often much less! NOAA/NWS can't do that, at least not around here.
I'll give you an example, say I want to drive the expressway heading home from Rochester (south shore of Lake Ontario). It can be overcast in Rochester until I hit the thruway overpass (just a couple miles south of the city, maybe 15 miles from the lake). There it might be pouring rain so bad that you cannot see (often literally on one side of the overpass and not the other, but that's another story). Within less than 5 miles of that it will be clear and sunny and the road will be totally dry. NWS forecast will say "chance of rain 20%" and the radar might show clouds (not rain) but only for a wide area and it will likely be up to an hour old. Wunderground will let me look at info from weather stations in peoples' back yards, local fire stations, etc. and I will know what the weather is like all the way along the drive and exactly what the weather is doing in specific places. It will be current since some stations automatically update within just a few seconds, not maybe once an hour. This is neat stuff for the finicky weather we get around here.
And like I said before any site that gives you a lightning detection for your area is way cool.
Give it a look and see what you think. It couldn't hurt, right?
I'll give you an example, say I want to drive the expressway heading home from Rochester (south shore of Lake Ontario). It can be overcast in Rochester until I hit the thruway overpass (just a couple miles south of the city, maybe 15 miles from the lake). There it might be pouring rain so bad that you cannot see (often literally on one side of the overpass and not the other, but that's another story). Within less than 5 miles of that it will be clear and sunny and the road will be totally dry. NWS forecast will say "chance of rain 20%" and the radar might show clouds (not rain) but only for a wide area and it will likely be up to an hour old. Wunderground will let me look at info from weather stations in peoples' back yards, local fire stations, etc. and I will know what the weather is like all the way along the drive and exactly what the weather is doing in specific places. It will be current since some stations automatically update within just a few seconds, not maybe once an hour. This is neat stuff for the finicky weather we get around here.
And like I said before any site that gives you a lightning detection for your area is way cool.
Give it a look and see what you think. It couldn't hurt, right?
