Travel Weather

The best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry. Or so goes the adaption of a line from Robert Burns’ famous 1785 poem, “To A Mouse”, after it is said he accidentally ploughed through a mouse’s nest that it had prepared for the winter. Indeed, even when it comes to extensively planning a holiday, taking into account every small detail, from the accommodation to the colour of socks to take, circumstances will change and, without doubt, things will not pan out how you initially anticipated. That being said, you can help yourself and reduce the chance of being surprised by keeping up to date with one of the most influential factors wherever you go. The weather. Be it a torrential downpouring of rain or beautiful blazing sunshine, the weather will inevitably influence what you do and how you do it, having the potential to make or break a trip away. Hence, staying updated with the forecast and any important weather-related information is a vital tool and ought to be factored into the planning of any travels.

For that reason, we have compiled a list of the top four travel weather websites, be it for a trip to the other side of the world or just round the corner. View minute-by-minute weather forecasts, get alerted on the latest warnings, read interesting articles, leave challenging comments and navigate aesthetic websites, all by simply referring to the options on this carefully curated list. The weather can have such a dramatic impact on the outcome of a trip, whether for better or worse, meaning staying up to date and knowing how to properly prepare can be vital information for not getting caught out. Each site was thoroughly assessed to ensure that a selection of only the best were selected, with each review containing a brief summary of the service, its highlights, what makes it unique and its potential drawbacks, while the pros and cons of each one are listed in an easy-to-read set of bullet points below each review. There are hundreds of websites all promising to offer you the most up-to-date information and weather-related news, however we’ve chosen only the ones that most suitably fit our criteria by considering a number of factors outlined below.

Undoubtedly, a notable factor that was taken into consideration when reviewing the sites offering information on the weather was its user interface and how easy it was to navigate. A good, user-friendly interface with simple aesthetic is an obvious, yet often underrated, aspect of many websites, and something that can ultimately influence the entire experience for customers trying to discover the latest weather forecasts and news. While a website may offer a vast array of options and added features, an overcrowded and confusing homepage can make using even the platform’s most simple function difficult for many users. Frequently, the best sites are those with a simple, minimalistic aesthetic that make no attempt to over complicate the service offered by adding too many extra features, while they also seem to be the ones with the fastest loading speeds. Therefore, we made sure that, when reviewing the various travel weather sites, we considered the overall usability and how easy it was to find what you were looking for before going on to assess any other factors.

Another element that was considered was the comments section below articles and how easy it was to interact with previous feedback left by other users. Comments sections are great places for discussion of topics and can offer a range of different perspectives on one issue, often challenging the views of the article. At the same time, being able to engage with comments from other readers, such as by leaving a ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’, or by simply replying with thoughts of their own. If enough people become involved in a discussion on a comments section, they can become much like travel forums, where people can gain useful information, ask questions and find out details from someone with first hand experience of an event or location. When a journalist is asked to write on a topic they may not know about in depth, having someone who has a deeper understanding can make the website more comprehensive than one that does not have a comments section. Yahoo Weather was one example that included this below their posts and it, without doubt, made for a far more encompassing platform overall. Hence, we looked at both the presence and ‘quality’ of comments sections when reviewing the various travel weather sites to suggest ones that we felt added depth of knowledge to the featured articles.

Adverts were also taken into account when reviewing the travel weather sites, especially those that were irrelevant to the topic of the articles. Yahoo Weather is one example of a website that offers free content yet supplements it by including an array of annoying adverts, be it on the homepage or the articles. Even worse than ad banners are sites that use pop-up adverts which appear in front of the article you are reading, giving you no choice but to cancel them. These can be very irritating and lead to users clicking on the pop-up by accident, taking them to a new website that they do not want to be on. That being said, with print newspapers largely moving towards online editions, they are suddenly losing out on the money that would usually have been received from people buying a copy. What was once paid for is now free, meaning they are forced to find a way to supplement the loss in revenue, hence the need for adverts. Nevertheless, there are more tactical ways of implementing them than pop-ups, while more relevant ones, such as advertising weather-related products, such as raincoats or umbrellas, would be a much more useful than beauty products, for example.

Finally, we considered whether the travel weather sites offered a service that included email alerts sent straight to your inbox for important and relevant weather updates. The weather can be highly unpredictable and varying, meaning if you are planning on travelling somewhere, you may need to constantly check the forecast and news to ensure there are no problems heading that way. Weather Underground is one of the sites that offers such a service, giving users the option to sign up to daily weather forecasts relevant to them. If the place in which you plan on visiting or are already in is at risk of being affected by adverse weather conditions, you can also request to be alerted if there is a chance of severe weather, such as hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions or wildfires. For that reason, such a service can not only prevent you from getting caught in a thunderstorm, it can save you from getting stuck in potentially life-threatening situations, which is why we factored it in when reviewing each travel weather site.

Overall, this list provides a selection of the four best travel weather sites from among hundreds, combining all of the above features to single out only the top four. In planning your perfect trip away, you should always consider the chance of the weather not turning out exactly how you had hoped, as this can ultimately have a profound effect on the outcome of your travels. Hence, we have taken into account the aforementioned factors to provide you with only the very best sites for finding all the weather-related news you need, be it the chances of a storm or whether you will need to unexpectedly pack sun cream and a hat for a trip up to Scotland. With this list you have all the information you need in one convenient place, saving you time in scrolling through pages of results on a search engine to discover the best sites to find the most accurate weather-related information.