Hello,
Just registered for the new UK Met Office website. A painless experience and seems rather nice. Judging by the wails from other forums a few many don’t share my experience or indeed like the new site. Just wondering what others on EuroGA thought about the new site?
Ta
Slow.
Very little functionality, few products.
However, it’s free. Not a site I would use for my briefings, even when flying in the UK. The ICAO stuff that the UK does for Europe (WAFC) is good but there are many sources for it.
I used to use their IR image for years but then they trashed it, converting a nice usable page with a useful history into a one with a stupid slider control, so now I use the SAT24 one, which is identical but is updated every 15 mins (UKMO’s was hourly) and is easier to grab for a private site for a satphone (adverts etc stripped off).
The “UK PPL training standard” forms 214 and 215 are IMHO a waste of time; they contain everything including the kitchen sink.
The UKMO should publish their 3D model but they never will because they sell it to commercial weather data repackagers, to the BBC, etc… and I think every other European met office does the same – which is why everybody uses the US GFS data.
I still pay to Avbrief (about 40 quid a year) to get the MSLP charts in the proper order and the latest versions; these charts are out there free but in a mixed-up order and often non-latest versions are being presented.
Signing up was painless, but I quickly went back to the old site. The new one lacks lists of metars and tafs. These give me a check on F215. What is left when my free access to the premium stuff expires late this month will be important.
