Horsforth weather

The first two days come from the Met Office's UK model, which divides the country into squares two kilometres across — the finest-grained forecast published for Britain. Beyond two days it blends into their global model at ten kilometres. Both are the Met Office's own output; this site adds nothing to the numbers except the decision of where to stand.

That decision matters more in Horsforth than it would in a flat town. Horsforth is built on the side of the Aire valley: the ground climbs from the river at Newlay all the way to the top of the town, and a two-kilometre square covers most of that climb in one go. The forecast above is downscaled to the height of the ground at Town Street, and the page says which height it used. Expect the top of the town to run a little colder than the figure shown, and the valley bottom to hold mist longer on a still morning.

The other thing a grid square cannot do is tell one side of a hill from the other. Wind here is usually from the south-west, off the Pennines, and the ridge the town sits on shelters the streets below it in a way no model at this resolution will pick up. If the forecast says fifteen miles an hour, Town Street will feel less than that and the open ground at the top will feel more.

Leeds Bradford Airport is two miles north-west and 208 metres above sea level, which makes it considerably higher than any part of Horsforth. It is the nearest place that takes formal observations, and it is a poor stand-in for the village: windier, generally a degree or two colder, and fogged in on mornings when Town Street is clear. It is not used here.

What this page is for

Mostly the ordinary questions. Whether the school run needs a coat. Whether the Saturday market on Town Street is going to be stood in drizzle. Whether the ground at King George's Field will have dried out by the weekend. For anything where being wrong is expensive — travel, work outdoors, anything on the moors — read the Met Office's own warnings for Horsforth, which this page does not carry, and their rainfall radar if you want to watch a band of rain actually move.

Where it comes from

• Source — Met Office UK and global model output, served by Open-Meteo under CC BY 4.0.
• Resolution — 2 km for the first two days, 10 km after that.
• Refreshed — the UK model updates hourly; this page re-reads it every fifteen minutes while open.
• Height — downscaled to the ground at Town Street, not the average of the grid square.
• Rain in millimetres, not percentages — the Met Office model publishes how much rain it expects, not how likely rain is. Rather than borrow a probability from a different forecast and present the two as one, this page shows the amount. A tenth of a millimetre is a damp pavement; two millimetres is a wet walk home.
• The day's condition — each day in the week is summed up by the worst condition the model gives for at least two daylight hours, or by whatever filled most of the day. The model's own daily summary calls a week of flat cloud "light drizzle" seven times running if one hour in each is damp.
• Not included — weather warnings, rainfall radar and river levels. Those are linked above rather than reproduced: they are the Met Office's and the Environment Agency's to publish, and a stale copy of a warning is worse than none.