Where can I get the most accurate neighborhood weather info?

[Doctor Q]

Suppose I have a street address (or latitude and longitude) and I want to know the temperature and precipitation at that location. Not a prediction, but the data right now. I know I can't get detail as exact as I might like, but what websites would be best to get close to it -- showing data for specific areas much smaller than a zip code?

For example, suppose I want to know how the weather is at Disneyland right now, when I know that a rain cloud is moving through the county and may or may not have passed that area. (If Disneyland has a weathercam, that's not what I mean. I'm talking about arbitrary locations.)

Weather.com is an obvious choice, and it isn't bad. Is there somewhere better? Just curious.

 

[iSaint]

NOAA Weather at http://weather.gov is ok. Weathertap.com is a pay site that is far more detailed.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Current conditions reports for the places where you can get them are generally reported only once an hour by the NWS. Example:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/lox/scripts...lox&prod=LOXRWRCA&version=0&print=yes&dict=no

Assuming you get lucky, real time weather might be available from the NWS for the location you require. Example:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?table=1&wfo=lox&sid=KCMA

But to get the full effect, you'll need to learn to read METARS code for cloud cover. I've never seen a product from the NWS which provides real time current conditions by LAT/LON. A commercial repackager may have come up with a way of interpolating the NWS data, perhaps for aviation purposes.

 

[spoon man]

Erm look out the window thats what i normally do .....but i use the apple widgets for weather i cant remeber the name off the widget i use off the top of my head (at work atm) but its pretty spot on with readings and reports.

 

[Father Jack]

I too use the weather widget. Make sure you set it to your nearest city.

 

[mkrishnan]

You two obviously don't know Doctor Q too well...

Weather.com actually put together some kind of mash-up app a year ago that tries to do this, but as the others have pointed out in the first couple of replies, I don't know that their data is anything better than the standard weather data.

You go here:

http://www.weather.com/weather/map/interactive

And then you can type in an address below the map. I'm having a hard time testing it, because, well, you know, Florida weather.... although there is cloud cover here right now, and it doesn't seem to show it. Or maybe it's just being insanely slow. I'm not 100% sure.

 

[JNB]

Weather Underground uses neighborhood-level reportage where available, but the only truly accurate method specific to your locale is to set up your own wx station.

 

[Gray-Wolf]

This area, www.weather.com does the job. enter the zip code and go.

 

[IJ Reilly]

These commercial sites are interpolating NWS data. It's important to keep in mind that for the most part, weather conditions are only reported at points, and mainly hourly. Real-time weather stations are becoming more common, but conditions are still point-reported -- which means that in between those points, interpolation must be used, presumably with terrain factored in somehow. The accuracy of this method is doubtful, since can be a long way between points. The exceptions are cloud cover to some extent and precipitation, which can be reported at any location based on satellite imagery (four times an hour) and NEXRAD radar (real time, where coverage is available).

Methods such as the Weather Widget are completely useless to any serious weather geek, if only because they allow you to request conditions from any location but (apparently) report the nearest NWS site, which could be many miles away. They also tell you next to nothing, not even cloud cover or wind speed.

 

[MacNut]

Weatherbug does a decent job but you need to be near a reporting station.