I’m on several message boards dedicated to travel and see a lot of people who initiate threads with, “How is the weather in [for example] Orlando in December?” Or “What’s the weather like in [for example] New York City right now?” My first thought it always, “I hope they have a weather app or know how to search for the weather.” Well, maybe they don’t :-). So in case you’re planning to travel and want a better idea of what weather you may encounter, read on…
Looking for forecasts in the future (a.k.a. “How is the weather in THIS PLACE in THAT MONTH?”)
To find this info, my first “go to” is Google. Yeah, they’re kind of “Big Brothery” but man, they have the info you’re looking for when you’re looking for it! Let’s use the information above and say you have a trip to Orlando/Walt Disney World coming up this December. Just Google WEATHER ORLANDO DECEMBER. This is the first hit you’ll get:
The 3 vertical dots in the upper right-hand corner give you the option to change your results to Celsius/mm (I suspect that if you’re somewhere that usually uses Celsius, the option would change it to Fahrenheit).
The handful of questions under the temperatures are ones other people have also asked Google – enough people where Google thought it might be smart to just have those questions all ready for you, just in case. Here’s what you get if you click on the first one, “What is the temperature in Orlando in December?”
They also give you the link of where they got that info, so you can click on that if you want to.
The process would be the same if you tried WEATHER NYC APRIL, WEATHER SYDNEY JULY, and WEATHER ANAHEIM OCTOBER.
Of course, you don’t have to use Google if you don’t want to. If you do the same in DuckDuckGo, Dogpile, Yippy, etc., you’ll get pretty much the same info (although you may have to click a couple extra times to find the website with the info you’re looking for). Bing, however, has the same “at your fingertips” info as Google does, as soon as you search for it:
If you’re specifically looking for long-range weather in the United States or Canada, you can also check out the Old Farmer’s Almanac. They’ll give you weather predictions up to 60 days out, based on past trends. If you want anything further out than that, Farmer’s Almanac recommends you buy their book (well, of course they do, LOLOL!).
Oh! That brings up an important point – predictions are just that…predictions. They’re based on past trends and what the meteorologists can tell from reading past and local weather patterns. It’s not a 100% exact science and, of course, global warming has played a role in throwing a lot of weather through a loop, with more or less precipitation, higher (or sometimes lower – and yep, it’s still part of global warming) temperatures than past centuries, a change in storm patterns, etc. So any time you’re checking for weather to help plan your trip, remember that the average high in Orlando in December may be 73, but in 2017, we had a daytime high of 86 on the 19th and a daytime high of 59 on the 29th, with a nighttime low of 40 on the 10th and a nighttime low of 66 on the 21st. So use weather predictions as a guide but not as a be all, end all – be prepared for anything, weatherwise!
Looking at the current weather (a.k.a. “What’s the weather in THIS PLACE right now?”)
I never quite understood why someone would want to know what the weather was at that very moment, other than just general information, since it’ll be several different degrees in just a few hours and just because it’s sunny and cold right now doesn’t mean there won’t be torrential downpours tomorrow or that it couldn’t be 20 degrees warmer the day after that.
Again, you can use Google to know what the weather is right now; just type in WEATHER and the name of the city you’re interested in. So if you wanted to know the weather in New York City at this very moment (as of this writing, Sunday, Feb. 11, 2018 at 3:20pm ET), you’d type in WEATHER NYC or even WEATHER NEW YORK CITY and you’d get this:
Of course, there are plenty of weather websites out there that also have free weather apps you can download to your smart phone, such as:
- Weather Channel
- WeatherBug
- Accuweather
- Met Office (U.K.)
- BBC Weather (U.K.)
All of them have options for where you are or where you’re going to be, so you can see the current weather and the forecast for the next few days to weeks (depending on the app).
So there you go – If you’re traveling, either very soon or in the not-too-distant future…or even if you’re not and you’re just curious to know what the weather is like in [NAME THAT CITY], there are plenty of resources at your fingertips that can help you.
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