custom weather forecast services and general consulting

For over 10 years True North Weather Consulting has provided industry leading client focused weather forecasts and consultation to a broad cross-section of industry and government agencies. Our professional staff is committed to exceeding our client’s expectations on every project we undertake. When the weather makes a difference to your bottom line, it’s time to call True North.

Custom Weather Forecasts:

Our weather forecast services are as wide-ranging as our client base. Many weather forecast services use a “one size fits all” cookie cutter approach to providing meteorological services. At True North we realize that each client is unique, each project has different goals and objectives. We take the time to get to know the needs of each client before preparing any forecast product. In this way, you can be assured that we focus on the weather elements that affect your operations the most.

In meteorology the following nomenclature is typically used when discussing weather forecasts:

• Short range – “today” and “tomorrow”
• Medium range – 3 to 5 days out in time
• Long range – 5 to 15 days out in time
• Seasonal forecasts

Typically, as one moves further out in time, the accuracy of any forecast diminishes. As a result, short range forecasts are generally the “most accurate” while seasonal forecasts are the “least accurate”. Medium and long range forecasts fall somewhere between the two extremes.

Despite this, most weather forecasts can be of benefit to any organization if they are properly applied. Short range forecasts are most suited towards day-to-day operations. Highly weather-sensitive projects will often rely on daily forecasts to modify specific work-plans on any given day and/or alert on-site personnel of dangerous weather conditions. Indeed, “weather warnings” are traditionally issued during the short-range period.

Medium and long range forecasts also offer tremendous benefits to organizations, specifically for planning purposes and large-scale mobilizations of manpower and equipment. These forecasts are well-suited to capture general atmospheric trends. For instance, longer term outlooks will not usually be able to forecast the exact temperature 10 days from now, but they are increasingly accurate at showing the overall trend over the coming two weeks. Will it be significantly warmer or colder than “now”? Will it be “quiet” with little precipitation and relatively light winds, or will a number of weather systems track through the region making travel difficult?

Throughout the years, True North has witnessed many clients using medium and long range weather forecasts successfully. In the oil and gas industry, we have frequently been able to give our clients a heads-up as to the onset of “winter”. Conversely, we have also accurately projected prolonged winter thaws which hampered drilling operations. Likewise, in the forest fire suppression industry, we have greatly assisted our clients in anticipating prolonged hot and dry periods which resulted in significant resource mobilizations while long range projections of periods of cool and damp weather result in demobilizations. Anticipating trends in weather has fostered a more efficient use of resources in all cases.

Our longer term forecasts are also used in an administrative sense to secure additional funds for various projects. Scientific evidence of weather trends helps to support operational initiatives at higher levels in any organization.

True North Weather Consulting is also called upon to produce seasonal forecasts. These forecasts offer an overview of the most probable trends in temperature and precipitation over an area as compared to long term averages. We use a variety of inputs from Canada and the United States to formulate these general forecasts.

Seasonal forecasts support a wide range of applications, especially in regions where growing season length, snow pack, and sea, lake or river ice processes are important. Seasonal outlooks have been reported to have modest skill when such skill is assessed over large geographic regions. However, in our experience, the adoption and use of these forecasts has been limited, likely due to the inherent errors in the forecast when applied to smaller regions. Operationally, we have witnessed that these forecasts are best used in an administrative sense, where a conceptual view of the up-coming season may be important.

Some examples of our specialized weather forecasts:

General Consulting Services

True North Weather Consulting provides much more than a weather forecast service. We have been retained by engineering companies to assist in impact studies and extreme/failure analyses, by government agencies to manipulate very large weather data sets into useable facts and figures, and by media outlets to train their personnel – just to name a few. True North has also been retained by other national weather forecast service providers to develop forecast verification statistics and feedback on areas of possible improvement. Even our “competitors” look to True North when they need professional consultation services!

We would be very pleased to assist your organization with any meteorological application you may have.