Remedial meteorology
A couple of interesting points out of the Prime Minister's speech in St. John's today:
For years now, this province has had to endure inaccurate weather forecasts from nearly a thousand kilometres away in the Maritimes.
As discussed previously in this corner, someone has pulled a Stockwell on Harper. Airport to airport, Halifax is 816 km from Gander. Downtown to downtown, Halifax is also about 480* km from Port aux Basques, 910 from St. John's, and 960 from St. Anthony. Even much of Labrador is 1000 km or less from Halifax; Goose Bay is nearly 1000 km on the nose; L'anse au Clair is about 900; Labrador City about 960.
What's really interesting, though, is the broader implication that you can't, as a matter of principle, have a weather forecaster more than 1000 km, or at least, no farther than Halifax is from Newfoundland, from the weather forecastee.
What are the implications, then, for Gander, which is farther from Cartwright (540 km), Rigolet (620), Goose Bay (630), Hopedale (810), Churchill Falls (830), Nain (960), Labrador City (965), or Cape Chidley (1390)? If Halifax is too far from Newfoundland to forecast its weather, then Gander is too far from all of Labrador except for the communities that follow Newfoundland Time.
Harper continues:
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians deserve better than to be told to expect five centimetres of snow over night only to wake up to ten times that amount.
That's a line to bear in mind the first time — and there will be a first time, and times after that — that the re-established Gander weather office does what all weather offices do: makes a bum call.
It is, after all, Environment Canada. Harper may end up learning, belatedly, that people who lay the blame for bum forecasts at the foot of the federal government, won't care about the partisan affiliation of the government of the day that the forecast is wrong...
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* The distance estimates in this post were generated with a different mapping tool than the December 7 post, and have been rounded to the nearest 10 km.
posted by WJM @ 4:54 PM
3 Comments:
Well the problem of course, is that in Newfoundland, the private sector is incapable of giving correct weather, and satellite technology combined with high speed Internet and fiber optic linked computers are not able to provide correct weather either, only a federal funded and administered office in Gander can give correct weather. Yes, we believe in saving money indeed...
This was nothing more but a pure crass vote buying scheme designed to attract the malcontents who will switch votes for the guy who delivers the government largess because, ‘we sent them to Ottawa boy’, and that, 'we sent them to Ottawa boy' can be found not just in Newfoundland but throughout Nova Scotia as well...
gives a good view of the Doppler situation as it stands today, some very good points indeed. Hypothetically, if Over at http://nl-outsidethebox.blogspot.com/the weather office was in Gander this winter, would it have made much difference to forecasts 500 to 1000 Kms away?
The Serco weather office in Goose Bay had information predicting the big surprise storm in the Lake Melville region this past winter, for reasons unknown the ‘official weather office’ did not pick up on this. Serco is the private forecaster for the Goose Bay air base.
That said, closing the Gander office in first place was a bad idea.
This is what my last post should have looked like, sorry for that, B.
Over at http://nl-outsidethebox.blogspot.com/ gives a good view of the Doppler situation as it stands today, some very good points indeed. Hypothetically, if the weather office was in Gander this winter, would it have made much difference to forecasts 500 to 1000 Kms away?
The Serco weather office in Goose Bay had information predicting the big surprise storm in the Lake Melville region this past winter, for reasons unknown the ‘official weather office’ did not pick up on this. Serco is the private forecaster for the Goose Bay air base.
That said, closing the Gander office in first place was a bad idea.
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