Satellite images, doppler radar, AWOS (automated weather observation station): Weather observation today is high tech. No spitting into the wind to gauge air speed. No prodding with a graduated pole to measure snowfall. Too bad.
For the past three months – after a four year hiatus – I’ve produced the Producer’s weather page. Every Monday I retrieve an electronic package of observed weather data and forecast maps from the Internet. Fifteen minutes has page 2 ready for printing. Four years ago, this same job took several hours, on deadline! I was overjoyed by the time savings.
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Rainfall can vary dramatically over a short distance. Precipitation maps can’t catch all the deviations, but they do provide a broad perspective.
But then the complaints started pouring in. Concerned readers in Dawson Creek thought our reported percent of normal precipitation figures were off. A reader in Grenfell documented differences in weekly precipitation figures. A reader in Winnipeg questioned local totals. And a reader in Coronation wondered how the few millimetres of total precipitation we reported there related to the several feet of snow accumulating in his yard.
Investigating, I discovered most Canadian weather observation stations are automated. No big surprise. What surprised me, and explained some of the erratic data, was that not all automated stations are capable of accurately sensing winter precipitation. Snow tends to blow around on the prairies, making it harder to collect than rain. And snow must be melted to measure liquid equivalency, another tough task at 30 below.
I’ve been assured by Accu-Weather, our weather package provider, and Environment Canada, provider of the weather data, that an accurate winter weather page is possible despite AWOS shortcomings. With these assurances I’ll keep trying to provide readers with the the best weather page possible. I’d feel a lot more confident, however, if I knew someone out there was measuring snowfall with a ruler.
