Weather forecasters losing the plot?

I've just discovered there are no threads in this group on the weather. We seem to be betraying a treasured national stereotype, so ...

Does anyone else have the impression that the Met Office forecasts have become quite unreliable over the last six to ten months?

I've been relying on my local forecast on their website for some years and it used to be fairly accurate, as I remember. But these days it seems to be more and more just plain wrong. Then you check a couple of hours later and they've altered it to match the current weather.

I'm getting the impression that much of the time they're reporting the weather rather than forecasting it.

Is the Met Office losing the plot? Or do they just have problems with my local area? Or is the weather getting more unpredictable? Or is it all in my imagination (don't really believe this)?

Maybe websites aren't as accurate as local radio. Our local forecasts are almost accurate - but they sometimes get the timing wrong. When we watch local TV I tend to look at the graphics, rather than listening to the forecaster, but I don't expect them to be completely accurate as the local landscape (ie hills) and the strength of the wind over the sea can make a difference.
I think they are erring on the side of bad weather as it is often better than predicted.

Sometimes I think that small local areas can have weather different from their surrounding regions. Inverness seems to be affected by its location at the end of the Great Glen. And my mother who lived in Canterbury (Kent) always claimed that it often failed to rain when the forecast said it should.

3> That's certainly true. My parents live between the South Downs and the sea and you only have to go ~ 5 miles north and the weather can change completely - usually for the worse.

I check the met office online rather than any of the other sources of weather information. And for today and the next day I think it's usually about right. Might get the timings a bit wrong, but sun with rain later usually happens, even if the arrival time of the rain isn't always spot on.

I think sometimes weather looks better than predicted as they'll show a rain clound and then add 60%, so a 60% chance of rain. Meaning that at first glance rain has been predicted and didn't arrive, when in fact rain was only likely in the forecast.

#2 and #4 both mention the timing and I think that this is really what I'm seeing as more wrong that it used to be. An hour or so is nothing, but it seems to be happening more often these days that they're a whole day or so out.

Having recently experienced some days of "wall to wall sunshine", we will no doubt soon be told that "temperatures will be struggling".
I commend them in their continuing struggle.

I know I'm always on about radio ads, but there is another one I heard yesterday (Nov.) that began,'Now that summer is here....'

7>What were they advertising? Flip-flops??

#8 no, will writing!