Four Mountain Weather Apps & websites Every UK Hiker Should Use
One of the biggest mistakes beginner hikers make, is not checking the weather forest properly or even worse, not checking it at all.
Unfortunately popping your head out of the window, glancing at a widget, or looking at the forecast for a broad region won’t cut it.
When heading to the mountains you need to be more specific. You should search for the weather forecast for the mountain ranges you are hiking in, and if possible, the mountain(s) you are planning on climbing.
Conditions are can be drastically different up in the hills than they are down in the valleys, as temperature tends to decrease been 0.5 and 1 degree per 100m of elevation gained Whats more due to the exposed nature of the hills, the conditions can change in an instant.
This is even more true when hiking in winter when conditions are colder, darker, and more dangerous.
There are four things you should always be aware of when checking a weather forecast before going hiking;
‘Feels like’ temperature
Chance of Precipitation
Wind speed and direction
Visibility
All four of these factors will have a huge impact on your levels of enjoyment, safety, alongside what clothes and equipment you should wear and bring.
Met Office
This is the official weather service provider for the UK. They provide easy to read and understand weather forecasts for both mountain ranges alongside specific mountains, which are indicated by a mountain icon
Week long forecasts are available on both their website and easy to use app, with all the key information bring broken down on an hourly basis. a
Chance of Precipitation
Feels like temperature
Wind speed and direction alongside gusts
Visibility
Humidity
Sunrise and Sunset times
In my experience I’ve found it to be the most accurate weather provider. On their website they also have weather chars and maps.
MWIS - Mountain weather information service
This website provides weather forecasts for the 10 mountain regions of the UK.
They provide a 3-day forecasts which are updated multiple times each day. The forecasts detailed and easy to understand information which is aimed at both novice and experienced mountain users.
Their forecast are written usually in the form of warnings and showcase the effect of the weather on the hiker. Alongside breaking down the key information, they also have useful icons, which show wind, rain, and visibility
They don’t have an app, but on an iPhone you can save their homepage as a icon on your home screen. They also have a handy Instagram page which provide daily updates.
Windy
They have a free app and a website which showcases the wind, weather forecast, waves and temperature.
I predominantly use it for wind as it is very easy to use and understand. They have an interactive map which uses arrows and colour to indicate wind speed and direction and shows hourly forecasts up to 6 days in advance.
You can zoom into the map to see specific peaks and if you click on location it will bring up a 6-day overview.
I would recommend this if you are planning on being up on exposed peaks or ridges. It is also particularly useful if are also planning to fly a drone.
Mountain forecast
They provide dedicated mountain weather forecasts for more than 12000 major summits at up to 8 different elevations. The peaks aren’t just limited to the UK and can give forecasts up to 14 days in advance.
They also produce detailed animated and static weather maps for more than 1230 regions of the world. You can also open a weather map from any mountain peak page – it will show you that particular summit position and other major mountains in the area.
Their forecasts are again easy to understand and provide you the all the key information you need.
This website I use with the most caution, mostly because it has been the least reliable and has be wrong on multiple occasions. I mostly use it when i’m outside of the UK and to cross check against MWIS and the Met office and never solely rely on it
Final thoughts
Alongside checking the weather for the specific mountain I am planning on hiking, there are a a few things I will always do
Cross check the weather across multiple websites to see if they are saying similar things
Monitor the conditions in build-up: This affects what the ground is going to be like under foot
Monitor the weather up until I depart for the hike: Conditions are constantly changing in the mountains so its always worth have the most up to date forecast
Never take the forecast as Gospel: There’s been many times when the forecasts have been wrong.
Alongside this I always wear and carry the essential kit, including waterproofs, extra layers, power bank and head torch, even if I don’t end up needing it - As it’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
