One of the great frustrations I have had while living in Spain has been the attempt to get good, accurate, up-to-date weather reports in this country. You know, like those they have in America. My efforts have undoubtedly been hindered by the fact that I haven't lived in an apartment that has a TV since 1 November of last year, but still, one would expect to find something online that resembled what the United States has at its disposal. But alas, all of the weather sites that I know are US-based and a bit dicey in regards to their international forecasts, or at least that's how it appears to me.
Let's take Accuweather's site as an example. Here is what the forecast for Tampa looks like. Here is what the forecast for Barcelona looks like. Can you spot the difference? I thought so. Stevie Wonder could spot that difference. It's pretty big. I went to the BBC's website to try and get a video forecast and found one--that was posted yesterday at 2.30 in the morning. Way to phone-in the weather forecast, Beeb. And Spain's national meteorological site has few of the bells and whistles of its American counterpart.
To be fair, Weather.com and Weather Underground seem to put forth as much effort in dressing up their international forecasts as they do their domestic forecasts, but that really doesn't support this screed. Besides, they ARE based in the United States, so I would expect that their international forecasts, while less of an afterthought than those of Accuweather, are still not where they concentrate the majority of their efforts. And that leaves me a bit suspicious of the forecasts issued by these otherwise-venerable institutions. And so the search continues.
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