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Comment by baq | Hacker News Reader

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baq·

There are only 3 places you need:

1. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

2. Your local NWS site

3. https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/

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Simple. Find your dot on about 10 PDFs, interpret a handful of weather variables, know the safety tipping points of each, don't get it wrong or you may be injured, and check back every 4 hours! Easy.

Usually this is what most people would be looking for:

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=ecmwf...

TBH, the NHC one is very good. Each storm has a "Forecast discussion" link with specific details on the things that specifically drove the forecast. The NWS publishes something similar for each area forecast, and it is often incredibly insightful.

It isn't necessarily as good as the best local weather coverage, but it might help to point you to which station is giving the best coverage.

And honestly, the local weather office forecast discussions are great, too. If they seem too dense with arcane language, that's actually something that ChatGPT does a great job of distilling. "Act like a professional meteorologist specializing in public speaking. Please read the following technical forecast discussion from NWS, and rephrase it to be more accessible to an audience that is educated, but not experts in meteorology."

Do you want sensational click-bait articles or do you want actual weather forecasts by people who understand the topic and know how to interpret the models? Take your pick. One is simple, the other is not.

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