Private-sector forecasting, monitoring services using technology to predict patterns, issue warnings sooner

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This article was published 05/06/2015 (3809 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The potential for isolated, severe weather events can put fans on edge and stadium officials on high alert at major outdoor sporting events.

But for upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup matches, as well as every Winnipeg Blue Bomber game this season at Investors Group Field, there’ll be no cause for undue concern.

That’s because the stadium has subscribed to a new weather monitoring service from a local company called Precision Weather Solutions (PWS). In addition to an on-site weather station installed at the south end of the stadium, the service includes automated lightning detection notification that can send alerts up to an hour ahead of potential strikes.

“It’s a way better system,” said Kelly Keith the stadium director of security and volunteers. “The bonus is the station is right at the stadium. We can get the weather system right to the stadium, and not have to rely on the forecast for the entire city.”

Instead of having to step outside and see the lightning and count off the seconds to the sound of thunder, stadium managers like Keith can get automatic notifications and see on their computers the storm’s approach and make the right call.

Meteorologist Guy Ash, who co-founded PWS in 2013 with business consultant Suzi Bonk, said among other things their network can analyze in-cloud as well as cloud-to-ground lightning potential, which is critical to understanding the mechanics of the storm.

Since 2013, PWS has already installed 800 of their own stations — they cost about $1,700 each — mostly in Western Canada. Its network also integrates the information from another 500 sites including all Environment Canada, provincial government and public domain weather stations.

Its service is customizable to monitor and display on unique dashboards whatever weather feature the customer is interested in. So it can create an alert well in advance of a dangerous thunderstorm that is proceeding toward the asset in question.

“There is an explosion of technology now available like in many other industries,” said Ash, who has 25 years of experience in the field. “This kind of monitoring and big data is now a part of meteorology.”

PWS is one of only a handful of Canadian companies in the growing private-sector weather monitoring and forecasting business.

In the U.S. such services have been booming for a few years already. A U.S. company called Climate Corp, which crunches climate data available for free from government weather services, was sold to Monsanto in October 2013 for close to US$1 billion.

Neil Townsend, the director of market research at the CWB where Ash worked for several years, is an advocate of deploying big data to analyze weather information in the agricultural space.

(Ash helped the CWB build its own multi-site weather service called WeatherFarm, that was sold in 2013 to a partnership between Glacier Media and Weather Innovations Inc.)

Townsend said he has no first-hand knowledge of how PWS works but said he understands the concept of what they are doing.

“Probably at this stage, as a tool it (big-data weather services) is in its infancy,” Townsend said, “But it is going to be something that will be transformative.”

That’s what Ash and Bonk are betting on.

“We are in the process of ramping things up,” said Bonk, who has been involved in consulting on agricultural and weather-related businesses in the past.

She would not disclose any details on the current financial state of PWS other than it is likely the self-financed company will be looking to raise additional capital sometime in the near future.

It currently has a staff of about 10 people, as well as about 25 contract installers and a battery of software and systems-engineering contractors. The company just hired its first director of business development and sales, and Bonk said it seems as though it is adding to the staff every week.

“All I can say is that if we weren’t bringing in some revenue, we wouldn’t still be around,” she said.

There is a growing understanding of cost savings that are possible if you can mitigate weather risks. Some estimates say it could be as much as $1 trillion annually in North America alone.

“I don’t see the need for less weather information… there is a need for more,” Ash said. “I can’t predict the future, but weather variability has become much more of an issue as I have gone along in my career.”

PWS has a whole range of service offerings including integrating its weather stations and analysis as part of a total agronomy service from precision farming firms like Farmers Edge.

It has all sorts of customers in the agricultural space as well as rural municipal and conservation areas.

For instance, the West Souris River Conservation District has installed five PWS stations at five schools in the region.

Dean Brooker, the district manager, said, “Environment Canada has only one station in Melita in southwestern Manitoba. The weather is quite different between Melita and Reston and Oak Lake.”

The PWS network integrates all Environment Canada and provincial weather station data as well as international services.

Bonk and Ash say they have great respect for the work that Environment Canada and other services provide. But they believe there is a growing market of customers that need more granular information — and are willing to pay for it.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca