Beware of these weather sites. Checking the prognosis in the week leading up to your holiday can become an obsession, particularly if you start comparing one forecast with another. The BBC may say it's going to rain all week, but the All-Weather Index predicts sunshine on Wednesday.
A tip for skiers and snowboarders this winter, particularly those watching for powder dumps: the big commercial sites (such as ifyouski.com) do have forecasts, but most individual resorts now have their own sites with much more detailed information. The Meribel, Garmisch Partenkirchen and Chamonix sites are particularly good examples. Try typing in the name of the resort and adding either .com, .fr, .ch, .de, .at or .ca for the US, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria or Canada respectively.
The Met office
The Met Office is probably the best site to check for UK weather, and it has some interesting up-to-date satellite images of fronts drifting over continents. Naturally, you can also read the shipping forecast if you missed it on Radio Four, consult the list of gale warnings, find the inshore waters forecast and see maps showing the intensity of ultraviolet radiation over Britain and the danger of sunburn. Amateur meteorologists will enjoy watching the animated isobars moving over Europe, as they used to do on TV forecasts.
Interesting not so much for its weather forecasts, which are competent but basic, as for news reports on really severe weather phenomena that might be about to strike your destination. "Golf goes on despite possible tornado" and "Philippine workers try to avert floods" are typical headlines.
Sport Scotland avalanche information service
When winter approaches, the Sport Scotland Avalance Information Service will begin monitoring the risk of avalanches at five of the main climbing areas in the Cairngorms, Glen Coe, Lochaber and Creag Meagaidh.
Meteo en France
Very useful site if you understand even basic French. (The Spanish equivalent is at Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia Espana.) Click on Meteo en France and then choose a region, department or town from the pulldown menus. A pop-up menu with a two-day forecast appears. Unfortunately the five-day versions are only available to paying subscribers, but luckily...
The Weather Index
The All-Weather Index has free five-day forecasts for most of the places you are likely to visit.
Interactive weather information network
Click on a state and then click state forecast for a six-day written summary. Rather a primitive effort.
CNN weather
CNN's US forecasts are no more detailed than the National Weather Service's, but their cheerful graphics and Quick Time movies of fronts moving across a state make them much easier to grasp. They also include pollen counts and daylight hours.
World Meteorological Organisation
Links to the meteorological offices of most countries. These often produce tables showing the average temperatures, rainfall and sunshine for each month, so you can research the rainy season in Fiji (March-April) or the monsoon season in Malaysia (June-September), as well as the current forecast.
BBC weather
The BBC also has rainfall, humidity, temperature and sunshine data for most cities and five-day forecasts for almost everywhere you can think of.
