Is there a better place to check the weather forecast than the MET office?

I'd like to know too. I use the Beeb weather app which isn't the met office anymore iyswim.

There are thunderstorms here at 6 so we cancelled neighbours drinks. I'm sweltering but there is no rain.

I use the weather forecast from the BBC website, which I think is probably based on the Met Office data.

They do provide useful information on an hour by hour basis, temperature, likelihood of rain, pollen and pollution count etc.
However, you do have to take it with a pinch of salt and recognise that it’s not an exact science (that was your point, wasn’t it, I’m not helping am I?).

I use the BBC’s forecast for my weekly meal planning and when I do my online weekly grocery shop. So if they get it wrong, I end up with a fridge full of salad during chilly weather, or full of vegetables for casseroles and roasts, when it’s really hot.

Can’t win. ?

We usually look at xcweather.co.uk. Until recently it has been pretty accurate but I think, like a number of other sites, it has gone slightly to pot lately. I did read that it was something to do with Covid -19: far fewer planes doing weather observations, I think.

The Met Office is the UK's leading meteorological service. The BBC uses data that the Met Office provides in raw format to the BBC's current affiliated forecasting service which for now, is no longer the Met Office. The Met Office collect data and sells it to all sorts of weather dependent outlets: airlines, oil rigs, banks, supermarkets, wind farms, utility companies, farmers, balloonists, to name just a few.
Weather forecasting is not an exact science and if an area is large eg The South West, the forecast will show what is expected to be the most significant weather across that region. "Weather" can be very localised. Sunny where you are but, raining & thunder five miles away. Who is to say that forecast is right or wrong? No doubt many of us have experienced localised weather when travelling for example, a motorway. In & out of rain or showers albeit a forecast also gave both, eg "sunny periods & showers for some".
Many forecasts with symbols are computer generated so go by those symbols but backed up on the Met Office website & app by a regional forecast written in words by a hard working forecaster. There's lots goes on behind the scenes at the Met office so believe me, it's not just a meteorologist on the telly but entire industries who use their services & are glad of it.

AccuWeather, radar, hourly, brilliant site, accurate today with the storm here.

I’d recommend Accuweather too. Also has an area that lets you know the arthritis/migraine/allergy risk for each day.

Just had a look at AccuWeather site. They forecast a thunderstorm here in 9 minutes. (Hooray).
Seems better than my BBC weather site, so thanks for that.

I find that most of the time the various weather forecasts are largely incorrect. I find it far better to look at the radar maps which are updated every 5 minutes. The Weather Channel has one which is good.

At present the Met office has much less high altitude data than usual because a lot of that data comes from aeroplanes as they fly at 30,000 - 40,000 feet. With many fewer planes flying, especially over Europe and crossing the Atlantic, they have a lot less data to work with, and that impacts on the precision of detailed forecasting.

I look at this one every day
www.wunderground.com/weather/gb/newcastle-upon-tyne
You can get a 10n day forecast and also reearch any town worldwide:

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ps it's fairly accurate for trends , give or take 24hrs.

None of them seem to know what's going to happen from one hour to the next. We've been told to expect thunderstorms every day since last Friday. Nothing. Not a drop! Today it said 80% chance of rain. Nope. We are watching the forecast all the time as we need to get our hay cut but daren't because rain will ruin it and they keep saying it will rain. It hasn't. Turns out we could have done it twice over in the last week as it's been dry. So frustrating.

Netweather, radar and seven day forecast are pretty accurate.

I ask Alexa. I don't know where she gets her information from, but she is pretty accurate.

I agree that AccuWeather is usually spot on. The Met Office forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday said that we had a "16% chance of precipitation". We actually had a monsoon of rain with thunderstorms and lightening both nights.

Transatlantic flights have a weather box which collects data to inform the Met office of weather conditions. As there are no such flights due to Covid, therefore, no data to refer to. Whatever forecasts I read, more often than not, the opposite is happening. ?

I use Windy Wilson as he’s the most accurate for us but that won’t be much use to you unless you live in Perthshire and surrounding areas!

One of the things I really hate about modern technology is the way it gives people a sense of entitlement to information that most of us must have managed to live without for much of our lives.

Weather forecasts have become more accurate as the network of weather satellites was developed and expanded since the 1960s, and the computing capacity of the Met office has increased enormously since the installation of new equipment in 2012-13. Oddly enough the human race survived for thousands of years without knowing the exact moment is was going to start raining, and it really isn’t essential now.

I suggest we all acquire an umbrella, a range of clothing appropriate for a variable climate, and learn to live with a modicum of uncertainty. I can’t be the only person on here whose mother’s parting shot whenever I went out was ‘put a pacamac in your handbag in case it rains’, even on the driest of days, or ‘take a cardi in case it turns cold’ when the barometer was set fair and the mercury showed 90 degrees (Fahrenheit, of course).