I find doing my own forecasts are far better than that offered by the MetO. because i can forecast for my desired area and take the accuracy up. Weather companies around the world only need to give a accuracy of around 80% because they forecast to many people over a large area.
The MetO are very protective over their data, they earn millions of pounds from it so can't blame them although they is they do publish some info if you spend the time looking.
They limit the amount of model data they publish to only 2 model run, first at 1200 hours and the second at 0000 hours and they only publish data out to 120 hours, the most famous is the FAX chart.
There are loads of weather models produced every day by different countries. Some are GFS (Global forcast system, from the US); NOGAPS (U. S. Navy's Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System); ECMWF (support to European meteorological organizations) that is just 3 of many more. All offer data to some extent or other.
GFS offers the most data which goes out to 384 hours although at this distance the data is known as FI (fantasy island), It is relatively reliable out to 180 hour. GFS publish 4 runs a day and they publish all of their data a large amount of it is free the rest is by subscription from any one of the many providers.
Each model has its strengths and weaknesses, GFS often over cooks Rain fall amounts, wind speeds and for the UK convective potential, saying that though it is one of the only models that makes convective data available. ECMWF have the most accurate plotting for low pressure systems. MetO has many strengths but sadly most are not available to the public, one being the highest resolution data for mush of the world. Of course they make FAX charts available which are very useful.
Access to some free basic charts
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=nwdc;sess=One of the most annoying things about the MetO is that they are moving to computerised data collection which is fine for station observations but they are slowly closing all the upper air sounding stations. I use this data for convective weather forecasting. The Charts are known as Skew T
Skew T can be seen here
http://meteocentre.com/upper/uk.html?lang=en click on the chart.
For me upper air observations give me information that is vital for convective weather
Right I have posted links to enough charts to confuse you for a life time so I will shut up now.