Hi all! I’m trying to find accurate websites or apps to check the weather for cycling purposes. I’m particularly trying to check ahead of time whether or not it’ll be raining on the Yangmingshan climbs (Fengguizui, Lengshuikeng, etc).
What’s your personal strategy for checking the weather?
The rain radar on the Central Weather Administration website.
Weather Underground’s hourly weather forecast is also quite useful.
Also this
Anyway, if the mountains are cloudy, expect some rain or wet roads.
The main thing I use is the rain radar @Incubus has already linked to. But that’s also available in the Taiwan Weather app (under Observation / Radar).
Of course, that just tells you about now, and not a forecast. For the mountains I’ve never found anything that reliable.
Even for current conditions the apps are hit or miss. A minute ago I got an alert on my phone for extreme winds here in Danshui, and it’s awful out there, but Wunderground tells me it’s currently light rain showers here. No, it is definitely not light.
I learned long ago to look out the window in the morning to see what the weather’s like: too many times I woke up with my alarm and saw on my phone it was “raining”. I’d go back to sleep and get up an hour or two later to discover, actually, it was dry and the weather was quite nice.
So, yeah, overall, even getting current weather here is iffy - forecasts are yet more difficult!
I sometimes use the traffic cameras they have up there, also the Cultural Uni has a few cameras.
Right, I always forget about this.
Here’s are a couple of them; looks like the Erziping parking lot one is now a dead link:
Taiwan’s microclimates are hard to predict. Sometimes the easiest way is just to go outside and look at the sky. On days when the weather is iffy, I ride to a place that affords an expansive view of the sky (an open field in the riverside park or the observation deck next to the Hakka Cultural Park) and just see which side is clear and which side is looking ominous and simply bike toward the sunny region.
Thanks for all the suggestions! Super helpful.