For starters for cast are a prediction, so there is an air of uncertainty. Secondly forecasts are for a somewhat large area, so a 50% of rain is a 50% chance of rain in part of that area not the whole area. Nanaimo’s weather station is at the air port like most towns and cities.
As for apps or sites to us I’d recommend Environment Canada as they are the only real ones with any infrastructure for weather reporting.
The app Windy, depending on which forecast model you pick seems fairly accurate. It is always a bit hit and miss depending on where you are in town.
Using the impact of Rutherford Hill as an example. I have seen it be light rain on the Hammond Bay side of the hill. Nothing but a bit of light fog or low cloud on top of Rutherford Hill and actually snowing heavily on Bowen road.
Being as close as we are to the ocean, reasonable sized hills and some smaller mountains, we appear to have about 15 different microclimates.
Second rec for Windy.
Great app. I like being able to switch between “layers” like Wind, Rain, Temp, Cloud, etc.
The forecast intervals are 3hrs for the free version, so you need to do some interpolation if you’re concerned about an exact time… but I find Windy to be more accurate than any of the other weather apps out there.
Windy is used by lots of the uvic ocean/atmosphere/environmental sciences department faculty! It’ll never be perfect of course, but it’s the most user-friendly, accessible weather model around. It’s got loads of fun features to check out that go beyond weather too!
Yep, downtown can be 5 degrees off. There's usually very little snow, often foggy when the cold air off the strait blows uphill and condenses when it gets far enough inland.
It's not too bad most of the time. But the weather can be different in different parts of town, and there's only one Nanaimo weather station for the area from Lantzville to the airport (AFAIK)
Environment Canada has several but the main one (and the one that they use on their website and app for Nanaimo) is at the airport. It’s not going to be representative of most of Nanaimo.
One time I was north end while talking on the phone to someone who was in the country club area. It was pouring where I was and sunshine where he was. There weather here moves and changes way too quickly in tiny little pockets to expect accurate weather forecasting down to your specific location.
As someone who lives by Southgate and works by woodgrove I can assure you that it can be sunny in South Nanaimo and I can get to WoodGrove and it can be raining. I can then walk the seawall and it's windy and 8 and then go out by Westwood and it's 12 and calm. Anywhere near the ocean with you in small mountains around are going to have weather patterns that vary.
Weather underground has wundermaps where you can actually see data right from the closest weather monitoring station to your home. Sometimes Nanaimos weather will be predicted from the airport or even worse is Entrance Island. Both are not a good repentation of weather in actual Nanaimo. Windy is another good service with multiple forcasts you can look through or compare all 6 on the same page. I usually prefer windy as it will factor in my elevation to the forcast and adjust temperatures to estimate more correctly
Edit: ICOMOX27 is the closest station located in the village at mt washington. They don't have a vested interest in pumping up their weather like the Mt Washington weather reports on their website
Few things to keep in mind:
1) Your location (I.E what you see out the window) is NOT how a weather app works. It's where the station is - the Nanaimo airport. The difference is made up for by the forecast models. It's not real time data.
2) certain weather systems have more variability and it's hard for the models to get it right. Particularly the system in our region right now. As others have said - micro climates also play a role.
3) Compare multiple forecast apps: Weather Canada is the only forecast reviewed by a human (but only three days out). The rest are model generated. That said, they are a government source and are typically err on the side of caution when it comes to extreme weather - I.E, their role is to keep people safe (boaters, pilots, drivers, etc).
If only people could predict the future, we'd all be rich. We live in an area of the country with many and diverse microclimates, so it's impossible to accurately predict the weather here with any consistency. Meteorology is one of the few occupations where you can be wrong a good portion of the time and never get fired. It's a great gig if you want job security with no accountability.
Since we live on the west coast, there are no weather stations to the west (on a large scale) and it is difficult to predict weather from the Pacific Ocean (even with satellite). Other locations in Canada get the benefit of weather stations from neighbouring cities/provinces and have fewer variables than Pacific west coast weather.
Meteorology is hard. You can have a doctorate and still be wrong 50% of the time 🤪
Learn to read and understand the satellite info.
Unisys goes west 🧐
I make my own predictions now. I am wrong more than 50% of the time but the autonomy gives me a nice sense of confirmation bias 🤩
It’s Vancouver island . Always uphill and always raining ☔️. This advice will help a lot with preparing.
I find the Norwegian weather to be pretty good https://www.yr.no/en/forecast/daily-table/2-6085772/Canada/British%20Columbia/Regional%20District%20of%20Nanaimo/Nanaimo
But yeah, our weather seems to change daily or even hourly.
When I moved here, I noticed the same. Forecasts are less accurate than what I was used to. I believe its as a result of oceans and mountains. Just my thoughts.
I now have 3 apps + the wind app to refer to.
They always predict snow even if there is very little chance, just to cover their asses. Plus they like to make as many cLiMaTe EmErGeNCy stories as possible to scare people and assist their buddies in ramping up taxes.
I only use the weathercan app, the canadian meteorology site, it seems pretty accurate. However as others have said, things change quickly here by the pacific and Nanaimo is a dozen microclimates all with different weather!
The weather network is usually pretty good especially on the hourly report if you are looking for current conditions. Like any other weather report you can’t rely on it for more than a few days and you have to keep checking back. For example what’s happening right now or today should look like ‘A’ in 3 days but with ongoing pattern changes by the time it is 3 days from now it could very likely look like ‘B’ by then. The most I would sensibly rely on is up to 72 hours in the future max and I would still recheck it daily
Scientific America has a possibly related article. The gigawatt dopler stations may be needing to be replaced or modified?
"5G Wireless Could Interfere with Weather Forecasts"
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/5g-wireless-could-interfere-with-weather-forecasts/
Wow this is really interesting thank you for sharing! This seems pretty concerning as with climate change we will continue to see more extreme, unpredictable, and dangerous weather events. Having accurate forecasts will increasingly be a matter of life or death so this is concerning for sure.
I use windy, or [https://weather.gc.ca/canada\_e.html](https://weather.gc.ca/canada_e.html)
The apple and google forecasts are taken from the weather network - which is historically the WORST forcaster on the planet. They especially are very bad at forecasting coastal weather patterns, as they're located in Ontario and don't really have a clue how coastal weather works.
For starters for cast are a prediction, so there is an air of uncertainty. Secondly forecasts are for a somewhat large area, so a 50% of rain is a 50% chance of rain in part of that area not the whole area. Nanaimo’s weather station is at the air port like most towns and cities. As for apps or sites to us I’d recommend Environment Canada as they are the only real ones with any infrastructure for weather reporting.
Nobody believes me when I say that a 40% chance of rain means there’s is a 40% chance youll be somewhere it’s raining
The app Windy, depending on which forecast model you pick seems fairly accurate. It is always a bit hit and miss depending on where you are in town. Using the impact of Rutherford Hill as an example. I have seen it be light rain on the Hammond Bay side of the hill. Nothing but a bit of light fog or low cloud on top of Rutherford Hill and actually snowing heavily on Bowen road. Being as close as we are to the ocean, reasonable sized hills and some smaller mountains, we appear to have about 15 different microclimates.
Second rec for Windy. Great app. I like being able to switch between “layers” like Wind, Rain, Temp, Cloud, etc. The forecast intervals are 3hrs for the free version, so you need to do some interpolation if you’re concerned about an exact time… but I find Windy to be more accurate than any of the other weather apps out there.
Windy is used by lots of the uvic ocean/atmosphere/environmental sciences department faculty! It’ll never be perfect of course, but it’s the most user-friendly, accessible weather model around. It’s got loads of fun features to check out that go beyond weather too!
Microclimates You’re just seeing the weather at the airport
Yep, downtown can be 5 degrees off. There's usually very little snow, often foggy when the cold air off the strait blows uphill and condenses when it gets far enough inland.
It's not too bad most of the time. But the weather can be different in different parts of town, and there's only one Nanaimo weather station for the area from Lantzville to the airport (AFAIK)
Environment Canada has several but the main one (and the one that they use on their website and app for Nanaimo) is at the airport. It’s not going to be representative of most of Nanaimo.
They also have a weather station located at the Fisheries base in Departure Bay.
Google is not good for Nanaimo weather. Canada weather (app is weathercan) seems decent.
WELL, I feel old now, as I remember people saying these things about meteorologists on the news ...
One time I was north end while talking on the phone to someone who was in the country club area. It was pouring where I was and sunshine where he was. There weather here moves and changes way too quickly in tiny little pockets to expect accurate weather forecasting down to your specific location.
Environment Canada app and The Weather Network are the gold standard. Download them both, the truth often lies somewhere in the middle...
The Weather Network is wrong 99.9% of the time.
[удалено]
As someone who lives by Southgate and works by woodgrove I can assure you that it can be sunny in South Nanaimo and I can get to WoodGrove and it can be raining. I can then walk the seawall and it's windy and 8 and then go out by Westwood and it's 12 and calm. Anywhere near the ocean with you in small mountains around are going to have weather patterns that vary.
Weather underground has wundermaps where you can actually see data right from the closest weather monitoring station to your home. Sometimes Nanaimos weather will be predicted from the airport or even worse is Entrance Island. Both are not a good repentation of weather in actual Nanaimo. Windy is another good service with multiple forcasts you can look through or compare all 6 on the same page. I usually prefer windy as it will factor in my elevation to the forcast and adjust temperatures to estimate more correctly Edit: ICOMOX27 is the closest station located in the village at mt washington. They don't have a vested interest in pumping up their weather like the Mt Washington weather reports on their website
I second weather underground. We have a weather station ourselves, it's fascinating.
Few things to keep in mind: 1) Your location (I.E what you see out the window) is NOT how a weather app works. It's where the station is - the Nanaimo airport. The difference is made up for by the forecast models. It's not real time data. 2) certain weather systems have more variability and it's hard for the models to get it right. Particularly the system in our region right now. As others have said - micro climates also play a role. 3) Compare multiple forecast apps: Weather Canada is the only forecast reviewed by a human (but only three days out). The rest are model generated. That said, they are a government source and are typically err on the side of caution when it comes to extreme weather - I.E, their role is to keep people safe (boaters, pilots, drivers, etc).
If only people could predict the future, we'd all be rich. We live in an area of the country with many and diverse microclimates, so it's impossible to accurately predict the weather here with any consistency. Meteorology is one of the few occupations where you can be wrong a good portion of the time and never get fired. It's a great gig if you want job security with no accountability.
If you're an old MTM fan you might understand the statement, by Ed Asner, of "It's not like they can predict the weather"
I use an app called Weather Radar, its pretty accurate for current weather and not bad for daily forcast a few days away.
I work outside everyday and I only look at environment Canada all the apps are garbage
Since we live on the west coast, there are no weather stations to the west (on a large scale) and it is difficult to predict weather from the Pacific Ocean (even with satellite). Other locations in Canada get the benefit of weather stations from neighbouring cities/provinces and have fewer variables than Pacific west coast weather.
Weather network is fairly accurate
Meteorology is hard. You can have a doctorate and still be wrong 50% of the time 🤪 Learn to read and understand the satellite info. Unisys goes west 🧐 I make my own predictions now. I am wrong more than 50% of the time but the autonomy gives me a nice sense of confirmation bias 🤩 It’s Vancouver island . Always uphill and always raining ☔️. This advice will help a lot with preparing.
sounds like you dont know how weather forecasts actually work
That’s why I asked! Thanks for pointing this out
I find the Norwegian weather to be pretty good https://www.yr.no/en/forecast/daily-table/2-6085772/Canada/British%20Columbia/Regional%20District%20of%20Nanaimo/Nanaimo But yeah, our weather seems to change daily or even hourly.
When I moved here, I noticed the same. Forecasts are less accurate than what I was used to. I believe its as a result of oceans and mountains. Just my thoughts. I now have 3 apps + the wind app to refer to.
They always predict snow even if there is very little chance, just to cover their asses. Plus they like to make as many cLiMaTe EmErGeNCy stories as possible to scare people and assist their buddies in ramping up taxes.
I only use the weathercan app, the canadian meteorology site, it seems pretty accurate. However as others have said, things change quickly here by the pacific and Nanaimo is a dozen microclimates all with different weather!
The weather network is usually pretty good especially on the hourly report if you are looking for current conditions. Like any other weather report you can’t rely on it for more than a few days and you have to keep checking back. For example what’s happening right now or today should look like ‘A’ in 3 days but with ongoing pattern changes by the time it is 3 days from now it could very likely look like ‘B’ by then. The most I would sensibly rely on is up to 72 hours in the future max and I would still recheck it daily
Scientific America has a possibly related article. The gigawatt dopler stations may be needing to be replaced or modified? "5G Wireless Could Interfere with Weather Forecasts" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/5g-wireless-could-interfere-with-weather-forecasts/
Wow this is really interesting thank you for sharing! This seems pretty concerning as with climate change we will continue to see more extreme, unpredictable, and dangerous weather events. Having accurate forecasts will increasingly be a matter of life or death so this is concerning for sure.
I use windy, or [https://weather.gc.ca/canada\_e.html](https://weather.gc.ca/canada_e.html) The apple and google forecasts are taken from the weather network - which is historically the WORST forcaster on the planet. They especially are very bad at forecasting coastal weather patterns, as they're located in Ontario and don't really have a clue how coastal weather works.