Ideas That We Can Take From French Weather Websites.

[bennewsman]

After living in France for 7 years I realise that our French friends are even more addicted to the weather than we are. I have come across some interesting ideas we can nick from them:

• A dedicated Weather Channel - Chaine Meteo which is quite popular and runs on our equivalent to Freeview. Im sure this format would work over here. I wonder why nobody is willing to take a chance on this?
  

• Meteociel have an observations map where users are able to post there observations on a map of France, including pictures. This is a far more interesting way than scrolling down a forum to see what others are experiencing.
  

• The other thing that is new is they have brought out an Android app Meteociel which is a great way at looking at all those ensembles etc on your phone.Have we in the UK got anything as good? Doubtful.
  

• Lastly one of the old presenters Guillaume Séchet on the Chaine Meteo TV channel has his own weather sites covering the weather for the main French cities and even London. What I find outstanding is he has produced a very detailed history of weather news for the past 100 years in France with newspaper cuttings etc that he has posted online. Use google translate and take a look. The weather Almanac is a fanatastic piece of work, almost you could say a work of art and I wonder if anything of a similar standard exists in the UK???
  

I think these are some great ideas that we could adopt over here. Anybody fancy starting a weather tv channel over here? Netweather TV Live?

[95 Degrees]

Good points, the French are indeed obsessed with the weather, perhaps because their weather is both variable, unpredictable and extreme at times, thanks to numerous micro-climates and oceanic/mountain influences, meaning that there is often something interesting to talk about, hence a great list of sites, such as Infoclimat and Meteociel, and also MeteoFrance.

I used to prefer Met Office but their new layout I don't like so use MeteoFrance or old Met Office layout, anyway, I think that the picture system, and ability to view history, and past records of any town/city (used in Infoclimat) should be added to Netweather. It is a great site, but it would be nice if there was more to view rather than just forums and forecasts like in Infoclimat, so I agree that we should adopt some of their methods.

[Guest]

Like it 'because we have a place at Capestang (34310) where we spend approx 3 months of the year - It was interesting to check the events of spring 2010.

Is the Meteo Ciel Channel on cable and/or satellite or can it also be received on terrestrial? My set up is FreeSat for the UK TV and terrestrial for the French, though I do have Orange/French Telecom for the phone/internet and it is possible to get TV through their 'livebox' but I am getting a little bit fed up with their relatively high charges and poor customer service, so thinking of changing when we get over in the autumn.

Would appreciate any advice you may have on this subject.

[ZONE 51]

Interesting, the more ways to view stuff the better! i think that in towns/city we should have screen in shops to access certain weather infomation, most likely radar/warnings, or it could display a screen that changes through the weather warnings, or maybe a system in town like traffic lights that are color coded to indicate the weather alert level, of course we would like to know what type is on it's way, so maybe something that indicates wind/rain...

Something from the past now, the old teletext/ceefax was always used before the internet/mobiles(80s..)the new one is fine, but i always wondered why we could not/don't get a latest radar on there, i think it could have worked, all the blocky colours on the old teletext/ceefax shows that this would be possibe to display a radar, like the old Meto one.

I liked the old Meto site and was hard to move a way to the new one, I like the new Meto site, zooming in to local area, and the new radar/lightning, the site is excellent.

Edited June 14, 2012 by ElectricSnowStorm

[bennewsman]

The weather channel in France isnt Meteociel related - its the ChaineMeteo and its on Canalsat (equiv of SKY) and Numericable (equiv Virgin Media) so you would need to be a subscriber to view it. You can view it on the website though.

Also the app Rainy Days on Android is a superb weather radar for Europe (inc UK) updated every 15 mins and I highly recommend it. My girlfiend often asks me if its going to rain when she is going out and by looking at the app you can work it out pretty accurately. Im sure by using this radar technology it would be possible to give very accurate local weather alerts - maybe by text message etc...

Edited June 14, 2012 by bennewsman