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Weather & Climate Forecasts
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Planning a birding or adventure travel trip and want to know the climate at your destination or the weather when you arrive in two days? How about sun rise and set? What about solar weather? UV Index? Weather in the National Parks or along the interstates? The following sites will help you plan your trip.
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United States
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National Weather Service (NWS)
The NWS issues forecasts and outlooks on time scales of minutes for tornado warnings to 13 month seasonal outlooks. Birders will find the seasonal outlooks of interest as they anticipate migration, nesting success, or likelihood of irruptive species. NWS also issues a daily UV index forecast so you will know whether you need to take a hat and put on sunblock.
The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center
Issues assessments, advisories, and outlooks on weather-related climate impacts, such as droughts, hurricanes, excessive heat, and the current status of El Niño or La Niña. For those doing bird surveys this information is useful when analyzing your data.
The Weather Channel
A very popular site for 7-day forecasts plus storm watches, and weather in relation to travel, health, and outdoors plus much more. The site forecasts the weather for more than 70,000 locations worldwide.
USAToday
Similar to the Weather Channel though it has lots of general information about weather topics plus a special featuring of asking Jack weather questions.
Accuweather
While Accuweather has many of the same features as the previous two sites, they offer a unique feature of sun rise and sunset times as well as moon rise and set not only for cities and towns in the US but for just about anywhere in the world, a useful feature for birders wanting to catch the dawn chorus.
Intellicast
Intellicast has many of the same features as the previous sites plus 4-day forecasts for National Parks under Outdoors, and weather along the interstates under Drivecast, which is helpful if you are planning a long road trip to see some rare bird.
The National Hydrologic Information Center
For paddlers, this site provides useful information on stream conditions.
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The World
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The Weather Channel
Their world weather feature is easy to use, extensive, and in English. My measurement of extensiveness is whether a site can give me information on Guernsey, an island off the coast of France. I was able to see a 3-day forecast!
USAToday
Similar to the Weather Channel but it did not have any information on Guernsey. Instead it has extensive coverage of Antarctica, including South Georgia.
Accuweather
While Accuweather has many of the same features as the previous two sites, including a 5-day forecast for Guernsey and sun rise and sunset times as well as moon rise and set for just about anywhere in the world, a useful feature for birders planning their day.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
WMO has links to various member countries met offices for weather forecasts but they are in the local languages.
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Canada
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The Meteorological Services of Canada
Planning a trip to see puffins and whales off Nova Scotia or polar bears in Churchill then check out the weather before you go.
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Europe
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European Medium Range Weather Forecast
You can find the official weather reports for twenty-one European countries. It will help to know the local language though Turkish for radar is radar.
The United Kingdom Met Office
The United Kingdom Meteorological Office, known as the met office, has an easy to use site for 5-day weather forecasts not only in the UK but around the world. One drawback is that they have limited information on the world beyond Europe.
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Africa
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The African Desk
A source of weather information is The African Desk housed at The Climate Prediction Center. It provides seasonal outlooks for rainfall and ten day summaries of past weather conditions.
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Australia
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The Australian Bureau of Meteorology
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology offers warnings and forecasts plus other interesting weather related information.
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Space
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Space Weather
For the very adventuresome traveler, they will want to know what the space weather forecast is for geomagnetic storms, solar flares, sun spots, solar winds.
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please submit broken or outdated links by clicking here
Updated 01/20/05
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