Weather Check answers a narrow but useful question: if you went to one particular place during one particular set of dates, how closely would the weather there usually match what you want from a holiday? You pick a destination, set a date range, and the tool grades the conditions you can typically expect against the preferences you have saved — how warm you like it, how much sun, how few wet days, how little wind. It is meant for the planning stage, when you are still deciding where and roughly when to go and no real forecast yet exists. There are two ways to use it. In check-dates mode you fix a destination and a holiday window and receive a single score out of 100 for that combination, broken down by temperature, rain, sun and wind. In best-month mode you fix the destination, skip the dates, and the tool works through all twelve months to show which part of the year fits your profile most often. You can also compare up to three destinations over the same dates, and every result is encoded in a shareable link. The score reflects long-run climate, so treat it as honest expectation-setting rather than a guarantee about any single trip.
When you run a check, the tool reads daily weather records for the destination's exact coordinates from the free Open-Meteo Historical Weather API, which serves the ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis: a continuous, gridded record reconstructed from observations and modelling. It requests roughly twenty years of data, ending with last full calendar year and reaching back nineteen years before that, and pulls only the calendar days that fall inside your chosen window for each of those years. For every matching day it collects mean, maximum and minimum temperature, total precipitation, sunshine duration and maximum wind speed, then averages each across the whole span. Those averages are graded against your saved preferences and combined into one score out of 100. The four components are not weighted equally: temperature carries the largest weight at 35%, rain and sunshine sit at an equal middle weight of 25% each, and wind carries the least at 15%. A component scores full marks while it stays inside your stated limits and is reduced the further the long-run average drifts beyond them. Best-month mode runs the same calculation twelve times, once per month, and compare mode runs it once per destination over identical dates. Results are cached in your browser so repeated checks of the same place and window return quickly.
No. The score is built from roughly twenty years of historical daily records, so it describes the climate that is typical for that place and time of year, not a prediction for your specific dates. It is reliable for planning months ahead, but it cannot tell you whether your particular week will be sunny, wet or windy. Always check a normal short-range forecast once your trip is close.
Check-dates mode scores one destination against one fixed holiday window and returns a single rating with a temperature, rain, sun and wind breakdown. Best-month mode keeps the destination but ignores your dates, running the same calculation across all twelve months so you can see which part of the year suits your preferences most consistently before you commit to a window.
Each destination's averaged temperature, rainfall, sunshine and wind are compared against the limits you set. The four results are combined into one score out of 100, with temperature carrying the largest weight at 35%, rain and sunshine an equal middle weight of 25% each, and wind the least at 15%. A higher score means the typical climate sits closer to the conditions you said you wanted.
Each check reads about twenty years of daily records: it ends with the last full calendar year and reaches back nineteen years before that, then keeps only the days inside your chosen date window from each of those years. Using two decades rather than one or two recent seasons smooths out unusually good or bad years and gives a more representative picture of the typical climate.
Yes. Turning on compare mode lets you score up to three destinations over the same dates and preferences, so you can judge a shortlist side by side rather than running and remembering separate checks. Each destination is still scored from its own historical record, which keeps the comparison consistent and fair across all the places you select.
A low score only means the typical climate for the dates you entered is far from the preferences you set, not that the place is poor. Switch to best-month mode or try a different window: many destinations that disappoint in peak summer or deep winter score well in the shoulder seasons, so the timing is usually the issue rather than the destination itself.