Stay ahead of the weather with the BBC
Matthew Hanson | Guides, Windows 7, Windows Vista | 09/06/2010 14:45pm
One Comment
The BBC’s website is a huge place brimming with useful information, but one of its most treasured gems is the weather page at http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather.On here you can see the current condition of the weather in your area and you can find out what’s happening over the next five days, with a useful map so you can see exactly what the weather is doing.
There’s a handy feature of the page that enables you to add multiple locations so you can keep track of the weather for anywhere around the UK or even the world. You can do all this from the comfort of your armchair, but when you’re out of the house you can keep checking the forecast from your mobile phone so you’ll never be caught in an unexpected downpour.
Step-by-step: Check the weather
1 Choose your location
Navigate to the weather page and underneath where it says Find a forecast enter your postcode or where you live into the search box, and then click Search. Then, in the drop-down results list, click on your location. If you’re getting too many search results, narrow it down by clicking on the check box for UK only.
2 Add more
If you’re planning a trip away, there’s the option to add more than one location to your weather page. In the right-hand menu of the forecast page, underneath Favourite locations, click on individual weather search locations to add them. When you want to remove one, click on the minus symbol next to it.
3 Look at the forecast
The BBC’s weather page has all sorts of useful information to help you steer clear of bad weather, including a forecast for the next 24 hours and the next five days. It shows you temperature, wind speed and, when you click on a particular day, you get a summary, along with the state of the weather every three hours.
4 Map it out
If a simple forecast isn’t enough for you, you can look at a visual forecast of the coming weather by using the weather maps, below the regular five-day forecast. Choose your area of the UK by selecting it from the drop-down menu. Then, using the slider underneath the map, drag it to the right to look at the forecast.
5 Feed up
You can also get weather reports delivered via RSS feed. You can then check your email inbox for updates, or look at the top of your browser window to see the weather change. To get them by email, go to your Windows Live Mail inbox, click on Feeds ➜ Add Feed, copy http://snipurl.com/uaxni into it and click OK.
6 Desktop reports
When you want to get the latest in what’s hot and what’s snowy without going far, download the unofficial BBC weather gadget from http://gallery.live.com and install it to your Windows Sidebar. Click on the tool icon to the right of the gadget, go to Options and type in your location to get local weather updates.
7 Wherever you go
Many of us carry a mobile phone that has the ability to access the internet these days, so when you want to dodge those frequent showers, use it to get the latest in weather updates wherever you happen to be. Type www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/weather into your phone’s internet browser to get to the BBC’s mobile weather page.
8 Great outlook
That’s it! You can keep track of the weather here or abroad, no matter where you are by accessing the BBC’s weather page and using the five-day weather forecast. When you want to know what’s happening further ahead, click on Monthly Outlook, but be warned – the weather likes to change its mind!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Guides, Windows 7, Windows Vista. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
