Five-star forecasting

You can schedule trucks to hit the cities at off-peak times. You can cajole customers into paying for delays at the loading dock. But there’s not much you can do when you’re pinned down because of the weather-although you might’ve planned your route differently had you a better indication that fog, squalls, or other
nastiness was on its way.

That’s the thinking at Environment Canada, which operates an online weather office with enough bells and whistles to make your wind gauge spin. “We want truckers to know that the site exists, it’s free, and that it could help them avoid weather that might otherwise slow them down,” says Paul Robertson of Environment Canada.

Operated by the Meteorological Service of Canada, the site puts detailed weather forecasts, current conditions, and weather alerts at your fingertips. Satellite pictures are updated every half hour, but more useful are the animated radar images, which show the movement of weather activity in 10-minute increments over the past hour and a half. “With radar, you can drill down to specific regions and anticipate any bad weather that’s coming into the path of your trucks,” says Robertson. “If you’re able to schedule an alternate route, you can relay that information to drivers and to customers.”

The site also gives you access to Environment Canada’s official weather warnings. You can see at a glance that there are heavy winds approaching the Sunshine Coast in B.C., or there’s an extreme wind-chill warning in Edmundston and Madawaska county, N.B. Through a service called eWeather, you can have the latest weather warnings sent to your computer or cell phone by e-mail.

“A lot of folks aren’t inclined to wait for weather reports on the radio or TV, or they need more details than what those reports can provide,” says Robertson. “That’s what we’re doing here.”

For more information, go to: weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/
canada_e.html