(image courtesy CWB)

 

 

Farmers will now have access to improved weather predictions as new weather forecasting technology has arrived in Canada.

The Canadian Wheat Board, WeatherBug and other partners in WeatherFarm have unveiled a new modelling system.

"It improves the short-term forecast, reducing the error rate by as much as 50 percent for the first 12 hours," says Guy Ash, CWB weather network manager and agrimeteorologist. "So this will help with everything from spring flooding, watching for storms and knowing wind conditions for spraying."

The changes integrate the same modelling system used by the U.S. National Weather Service and the U.S. military.

"They use it for all the forecasts that we see currently in the U.S. The 'nudging' is what's unique and new to Canada," says Ash. "The actual improvement is accomplished by incorporating weather observations from the 800 on-farm weather stations across western Canada. These are added to the forecast model and by performing 'nudging' for the first three hours, it fine tunes the forecast model to the actual surface conditions."

The Board, together with its partners, has also introduced radar imaging to the WeatherFarm website. Producers can now generate birds-eye views of weather systems and zoom to within a kilometre of ground level. The maps can also be used to distinguish between rain, freezing rain and snow.

~ Monday, January 24, 2011 ~