I am sure this has come up, but I am unable to find a post regarding this. What town is better for a more accurate weather report representation for the northwest region (EP14, 16)? Ely, or Buyck? I know it's all variable, but the two towns seems to have significantly different weather reports in some instances.

I take a weather radio and find their forecast reliable and fairly broad based. Not sure where they broadcast from.

quote bwcadan: "I take a weather radio and find their forecast reliable and fairly broad based. Not sure where they broadcast from ."

The forecast comes from Duluth NWS, they also cover lots of Wisconsin.
I'm not sure where the transmissions are all broadcast from either. Probably various areas of the arrowhead, and northern WI.

I am mainly referring to extended forecasts (I know, take those with a grain of salt). When looking at a NOAA forecast, using which town as the geographical location for that forecast?

I mostly use the National weather service site. Pick a town near where you want and then use the map to zero in on the point you want. It seems to interpolate that area from the forecasts for surrounding areas.

This is for the Mpls area

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?map.x=197&map.y=146&site=mpx&zmx=1&zmy=1#.V79QjHUrLlY

This is for Sawbill

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.86296199994874&lon=-90.8869743347168&site=dlh&unit=0&lg=&FcstType=text#.V79RnnUrLlZ

Note that in the above link, you can put in the latitude and longitude of the point you want as well.

Weatherundergound also lets you use a map to pick a location.

This is for Sawbill

https://www.wunderground.com/us/mn/schroeder/zmw:55613.1.99999

I mostly use the National weather service site. Pick a town near where you want and then use the map to zero in on the point you want. It seems to interpolate that area from the forecasts for surrounding areas.

This is for the Mpls area

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?map.x=197&map.y=146&site=mpx&zmx=1&zmy=1#.V79QjHUrLlY

This is for Sawbill

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=47.86296199994874&lon=-90.8869743347168&site=dlh&unit=0&lg=&FcstType=text#.V79RnnUrLlZ

Note that in the above link, you can put in the latitude and longitude of the point you want as well.

Weatherundergound also lets you use a map to pick a location.

This is for Sawbill

https://www.wunderground.com/us/mn/schroeder/zmw:55613.1.99999

I like this one: Ely Weather

Since most weather goes from west to east, it is decently accurate for the middle of the BWCA. Their radar is quite good. Once you use the Grand Marais airport location, the weather is pretty much passed by the whole BWCA. Plus, the weather at the end of the Gunflint is often a lot different than at the GM airport, which is only a little ways up the hill from Lake Superior. I may be wrong, but I think the GM airport is near Devil Track Lake, which is not that far from Grand Marais.

From many earlier great posts, I would imagine that Whitewolf would be the guy to give the definitive answer.

Tomster

When camping on the eastern side of the BWCA, I use Finland, MN as my long range weather forecast. When camping on the western side, I look at Ely and International Falls for long range forecast.

I never look at Grand Marais due to the fact they are right on Lake Superior and all the weather on the shore is wildly different from anything happening just 30 miles inland.

There is a NWS forecast for the Grand Marais/Cook County Airport that gives a somewhat "inland" version of the City of Grand Marais "shoreline" forecast.

For an extended forecast (5 days and out-- really 3 days out) the distance between Ely and Buyck shouldn't be that much different in having the nearly the same forecast. It shouldn't matter which town you are using at that distance for an extended forecast. If you are seeing large differecnes like you mentioned from a NOAA point and click forecast seen here -- between Buyck and Ely,, that doesn't make sense in my time in the weather field. Send me an email when/if this happens and will contact people in the know and find out why it is like that when it shoudn't be.

IF it comes from a site other then NOAA such as ACCuweather/ Weather Underground , Weather Channel etc and on... (I'am not trying to sell you on NOAA,, just the facts-- and BTW-- I have serious issues with NOAA,, but that is for another day) then I can explain what is likely going on -- your likely getting two different model data sets for each location-- one for Ely and the other for Buyck. The are likely the "Same" computer model,, just initialized at different times. This is why you see your phone weather apps "flip flop" in the extended for even the same location. The reason for this is that there is little to none human augmentation of the raw computer model data that gets fed into these apps. Without a trained professional to realize which tool is not needed , or is needed, (picking which model to go with) -- past 5 days -- it's usually garbage in - garbage out and hence the flip flopping. There are other possibilities -- but for the sake of brevity -- I will stop. I hope this helps.

quote WhiteWolf: "For an extended forecast (5 days and out-- really 3 days out) the distance between Ely and Buyck shouldn't be that much different in having the nearly the same forecast. It shouldn't matter which town you are using at that distance for an extended forecast. If you are seeing large differecnes like you mentioned from a NOAA point and click forecast seen here -- between Buyck and Ely,, that doesn't make sense in my time in the weather field. Send me an email when/if this happens and will contact people in the know and find out why it is like that when it shoudn't be.


IF it comes from a site other then NOAA such as ACCuweather/ Weather Underground , Weather Channel etc and on... (I'am not trying to sell you on NOAA,, just the facts-- and BTW-- I have serious issues with NOAA,, but that is for another day) then I can explain what is likely going on -- your likely getting two different model data sets for each location-- one for Ely and the other for Buyck. The are likely the "Same" computer model,, just initialized at different times. This is why you see your phone weather apps "flip flop" in the extended for even the same location. The reason for this is that there is little to none human augmentation of the raw computer model data that gets fed into these apps. Without a trained professional to realize which tool is not needed , or is needed, (picking which model to go with) -- past 5 days -- it's usually garbage in - garbage out and hence the flip flopping. There are other possibilities -- but for the sake of brevity -- I will stop. I hope this helps.


"

Yes, this totally makes sense. As always, thank you for your insight. I should also clarify. The drastic differences I was seeing were on the sites you mentioned above. After looking at the NOAA forecasts, there was not a big difference. BTW, You sold me on pivotalweather.com!! Now I just need to research the models more!

I now own a weather radio. I know in the BW or Q the broadcast tower could vary. But this post got me to thinking, how do I determine what area the forecast is for? Ely, Grand Marias, Atikoken?