There are many sites and services in the Internet where you can learn weather forecasts. However the big variety of choices doesn`t mean that these forecasts are different. In truth, weather forecasts are made by state or commercial weather services that is why the number of sources that provide information about weather in the Internet is limited.

Weather forecast sites for Russia

For example, three main weather informers in Russia such as Weather@Mail.ru, Yandex.Weather, Rambler-Weather provide the same information obtained from the Meteonovosti agency.

However there is a chance to learn an alternative weather forecast in the Internet — on Gismeteo.ru that belongs to the Map Maker Company that design weather information processing systems. First forecasts provided by the company appeared in 1990s in the FIDOnet. But because of the Internet extension everyone who wanted to know about weather got a chance to learn weather forecast on Gismeteo.ru founded in 1998. Nowadays about 800 thousand people visit the site. The owners of palmtops and smartphones can use Gismeteo.pda and for mobile phones — GISMETEO.SMS and GISMETEO.WAP. What is more, you can download Gismeteo.Tray that allows getting weather forecast on task bar Windows.

Weather forecasts on Google maps are obtained from the Russian Meteorology Centre.

Weather forecast sites for the USA and Europe

Weather.com. The site of the US Weather Channel. The TV Channel began to broadcast in 1982 and the web site opened in 1995, now it has 17,5 million users per month. TWC offers different weather services for Internet users. For example, it provides gardeners with weather forecasts and based on them recommendations of plant care. TWC also can help travelers choose to learn weather forecast in a city where they want to go, so they can plane their trip. It has WAP portal for mobile users, widjets for IPhone users and specially for PC users sites informers. Other web sites use its weather forecasts, for example, Yahoo!.

Weather Underground. This weather service appeared in 1991. At first it was designed in the University of Michigan and was an elementary graphic interface that watched the weather on-line. The official web-site has appeared four years later and now it has 11,7 million users per month. It offers special services for palmtop and IPhone. Today the company owns an independent net of weather stations that consists of 10 thousand stations in the USA and 3 thousand all over the world.

AccuWeather. The site has 7,4 million users per month. The company was founded in 1962 and opened its web site in 1995. It offers additional services for IPhone and other mobile phones. It also offers paid services such as an access to the single database and applications that allow working professionally with weather data.

Intellicast. The site founded in 1996 has 1,2 million users per month. It is a part of the Weather Service International (WSI) Company. The company possesses one of the biggest commercial weather stations in the world that works with the US National Weather Service, The US Military Forces, and the governments of Canada, Japan and Great Britain, other international agencies. On the site you may subscribe to RSS feeds and daily mailing about weather forecasts.

BBC Weather Today it is a part of the BBC Company that deals with weather forecasts. The web site was founded in 1997 and provides information about weather not only in Great Britain but all over the world. It offers a special service for mobiles: you may send a message to a special number and learn weather forecast. You may also subscribe to RSS feeds.

Foreca.The company was found in 1996, its headquarters are located in Helsinki. It offers a variety of instruments for mobile users. For example, you may download a free weather widjet Foreca to your mobile (you may find it on the site www.widsets.com). You may also use SMS and MMS weather services that are available in more 100 thousand places all over the world in 25 foreign languages. You may visit foreca.mobi, this service works with most mobile phones with color displays, its interface is available in 15 foreign languages. You may also buy ForecaWeather that will inform you about weather for your location using GPS. This application is designed for S60 3rd edition devices that was tested for Nokia phones: 3250, 5500, 5700 XpressMusic, E51, E60, E61i,E65,E70,E71, E90, N71, N73, N76, N80, N81 8GB, N82, N91, N93i, N95, N95 8GB, 6120 classic and 6110 Navigator. It also has a flash-version that since July, 2006 is built in Nokia 6131distributed in Singapore.

What forecast may I rely on?

You may understand it on MyCli.me that allows to compare weather forecasts of different sources and decide which of them is truest. In 2009 in Russia BBC Weather gave most exact weather forecasts, neither the Russian Meteorology Centre or Gismeteo (according to MyCli.me). But the data accuracy provided by BBC accounted only for 39%.