Speaking quietly in the language of weather forecasters, James Cummine and Suzanne D’Amours pour over models of patterns from the earth’s atmosphere, generated from a computer in Montreal.
Outside, it’s hot and humid, with a mix of sun and cloud.
But the meteorologists inside Environment Canada offices are as in touch with what’s happening in Wainwright or Weyburn as they are with the weather in Winnipeg.
From a wing of Winnipeg’s downtown train station, they monitor information from radar and automated weather stations and computer models, developing five-day forecasts for each part of the Prairies, and watching out for severe weather.
Read Also
Land crash warning rejected
A technical analyst believes that Saskatchewan land values could be due for a correction, but land owners and FCC say supply/demand fundamentals drive land prices – not mathematical models
They work with smaller teams in offices in Saskatoon, Calgary and Edmonton, talking to each other with a video link.
But when a farmer picks up a phone to talk to a weather expert, chances are good the voice on the other line is coming from a stone’s throw away from where the Red and Assiniboine rivers meet.
And the call isn’t free. It costs $1.95 per minute, and it’s going up $1 in October.
But during the summer, the line is kept busy by people who need to make quick decisions based on the weather, namely farmers and the businesses that apply chemicals to crops or trade grain.
“A $5 phone call, in most cases, is going to pay for itself very quickly,” said Dale Marciski, an account representative in the department’s commercial weather services section.
When the 1-900 line started in 1995, Environment Canada staff were surprised how few hostile calls they got from farmers, said Marciski.
He noted farmers were used to paying long-distance charges for the calls anyway. Now that people are thinking twice about calling a meteorologist before going to the beach, farmers have a better chance of getting through.
“We had thousands and thousands of calls” before the line was user-pay,” said Marciski. “The main bulk of people never came back.”
No longer personal
But he said farmers were less pleased when the department closed local weather offices, where staff often knew the communities and many of the callers. Calling Winnipeg can seem less personal.
The office is equipped with computers and cutting edge automation that is the envy of other countries’ national weather organizations.
The department still provides free current conditions, five-day forecasts and severe weather warnings through news wires, radio transmitters, an automated phone system and the internet.
In the past year, the department also started selling iWeather, which is internet images showing current precipitation patterns that are updated every 10 minutes from seven radar sites across the Prairies.
The subscription to the service has been particularly popular in Alberta, said Marciski. It costs $25 per month for 100 peeks at how patterns are moving, and is accurate within two kilometres.
“That’s where you do a little bit of your own forecasting,” he said.
Despite all the technology, Environment Canada still feels most confident in the shortest-term forecasts. Marciski said forecasters are generally 80 to 85 percent confident what they predict in the morning will happen in the evening. Going five days out isn’t always accurate, but “it is still better than flipping a coin.”
Visa and Mastercard signs aren’t far away in the office from where Frank Svistovski talks to a caller about lightning that struck Pinawa, Man. on Sept. 11 and 12, 1997. Svistovski, a climate services consultant, deals more with past weather as opposed to forecasts.
His team sells Environment Canada’s weather bulletins to customers. A daily subscription costs $1,825 per year, while weekly and monthly summaries are cheaper. Ninety people buy the daily summary for Winnipeg alone.
About half the data comes from automated stations across the Prairies; the rest from dedicated observers who phone in each morning.
He also sells agrometeorological bulletins and maps showing soil moisture and predicted crop maturity dates and yields for wheat, barley, canola, forages, potatoes and corn.
On July 5, computer models predicted canola yields under 14 bushels per acre near Saskatoon, and more than 23 bu./ac. near Brandon, assuming normal conditions for the rest of the growing season.
After the frost this June, business was brisk for temperature maps, at $87 each.
Customers for climate information include governments, chemical and seed companies, grain exporters, commodity brokers, insurance companies, engineers and lawyers.
The manager of the Rolling Stones once called to find out typical weather conditions for when the band was scheduled to play a show in Winnipeg.
The department has traditionally charged for its climate information, said Svistovski, but now it’s in the early stages of trying to make money from it.
“We’re busy,” he said. “Business is good. There’s always something with the weather.”
