Folks - seeing as the weather is rubbish and there's little prospect of seeing the Aurora or the Leonids, I though I'd pass on a web site that's a great weather resource that I've found and its usually fairly accurate.
The key thing here is that the site is a professional weather site that most people have to pay for. HOWEVER, the MD is an amateur astronomer and he provides free weather forcasts for astronomers - so you get forecasted seeing conditions etc.
It gets better - though the site is run from the UK, I mailed the guy and asked him if he could forecast Kildare for me - "No problem" - and hey, there it is. Kildare in perpuity. Why not mail him and get your County on the forecast?
By the way, I did contact Met Eireann to see if they would give a daily astro-cast - they said they'd get back to me. I'm still waiting after about 12 months...
All the best
Dave
Here's the site and a review by the Times:
"If you are an astronomer, stargazer or professional, and your location isn't listed here, please email us and we'll try to include it when we next update our forecast program."
WEATHER
www.weatherweb.net/astronomy.htm
Astronomy is even more dependent on the weather than cricket, since turbulent atmospheric conditions can stop play, even when the skies are blissfully clear. Throw in the fact that cold nights make lengthy outdoor observations uncomfortable, and the need for accurate astronomical forecasts is obvious. This weather-forecasting service, a labour of love maintained by the tele- vision weatherman and keen astronomer Simon Keeling, is no-frills, but one of the best of its type. Essentially a single-page site, all relevant information is grouped into one table that can be downloaded or viewed online. Forecasts are updated daily, specific to small geographical areas, and closely tailored to the needs of optical astronomers.
For example, the “seeing conditions†take into account likely atmospheric factors, and airborne pollution.
