Drakensberg weather sites

I have just noticed that yr.no has a new feature - detailed hour by hour summaries. It has all the info of the old hour by hour summaries, but with projected cloud cover, the altitude of the positioning of the cloud cover (i.e. mist vs low/middle/high). Pretty cool

You can check out what I mean for Gray's Pass at www.yr.no/place/South_Africa/KwaZulu-Natal/Gray%E2%80%99s_Pass/hour_by_hour_detailed.html

I like this site... I've found it to be quite accurate for the Berg too so far

www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mont-Blanc/forecasts/4000 - check out this forcast, for that region it's still mild! I was up there in 2001 and then it went Pear shaped. Half of our group had to get a helicopter pick up later that day but I enjoyed the best down climb of my life at over 2.5km in about 8 hours.

When reading the Snow Watch threads, I see guys posting long range forecasts. Out of interest, I would like to know what portals you access to get as accurate a picture of weather to come. For instance, if you are planning a hike in the berg, lets say in the Cathedral area, what forecaster are you using i.e. Accuweather or similar, and what location are you using when checking out the forecast.

On that note, how "accu" do you think 'Accuweather' actually is?

I suppose that forecasting the weather for the different regions in the Berg is a skill, that is also largely dependent on knowledge of the berg's climate, and this is something that interests me. I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

I was too lazy to search for a "Drakensberg weather" thread however weather buffs of which I think many hikers are,might find this website interesting:

earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-329.36,-16.46,1024

Zooming in to the Drakensberg and seeing how the winds work, and all the other info available is mesmerising stuff!

Jon Edit: Posts moved to existing thread

Really cool site!! What I have found interesting in this is the amount of wind movement over South Africa compared any other land mass.

Following on from your post, here is another site offering extra data in a similar format.
www.windyty.com/?-29.803,31.025,4

The site in the link below includes wind, temperature, precipitation and snow.

www.windyty.com/?clouds,-29.085,25.247,6

Thanks guys, it's actually a much better site. Site I suggested is a bit clunky.

Bigsnake wrote: I was too lazy to search for a "Drakensberg weather" thread however weather buffs of which I think many hikers are,might find this website interesting:

earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-329.36,-16.46,1024

Zooming in to the Drakensberg and seeing how the winds work, and all the other info available is mesmerising stuff!

Jon Edit: Posts moved to existing thread

Thanks for posting the link to the nullschool site. Its an amazing animation because it comes from a single timestep. I've never worked out exactly what the trick is but that animation looks fantastic. I use it for work a lot.

Just a note of caution though - the 1000 hPa level is at or pretty close to sea level. 1000 hPa is a measure of the atmospheric pressure at the level displayed.
The top of the Berg is about 700 hPa (corresponding to about 3000m) because pressure decreases as you go upwards in the atmosphere. So to work out what the winds are doing at escarpment level - choose 700 for the height. The menu system is quirky and cryptic - click on the word 'Earth' for making selections.