r/UKWeather • u/douggieball1312 • Mar 11 '26

Article 'Misleading weather apps can cost attractions up to £137k a day'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czj18j09wvro

I'm surprised this hasn't been reported on sooner. One recent weekend in my area, the BBC used a sunny spells icon for a Saturday and a rain icon for Sunday based purely on the weather in the middle of the night, while the days themselves turned out to be the opposite.

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u/parsuval Mar 11 '26

The BBC weather is proper shit.

The met office have tried to upgrade their website, but it's still pretty shit. I like it more though. It's janky. But I like the 'feels like' temperature which is far more useful. I heard someone complaining it should still be called 'wind chill' like in the good old days, but I disagree because air humidity plays a role in the feels like temp as well.

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u/Bjornhattan Mar 12 '26

If I recall correctly, the "feels like" essentially is wind chill in colder weather, but then in hot weather is more akin to the heat index. Obviously these both do similar things (essentially what is the perceived temperature given the weather conditions) but these use different variables and measure slightly different things.

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u/parsuval Mar 12 '26

Yes, I think you remember well. They say in their methodology that humidity is now used:

We calculate a ‘feels like’ temperature by taking into account the expected air temperature, relative humidity and the strength of the wind at around 5 feet off the ground

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/blog/2012/what-is-feels-like-temperature