UHF Wind Profilers will Support Nowcasting During the Vancouver 2010 Olympic/Paralympic Winter Games

The Meteorological Service of Canada (at Environment Canada) has been awarded as the official weather-information provider for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. High winds, reduced visibility and mixed-phase precipitation are some of the forecasting challenges for the outdoor Games venues, all enhanced by the complex terrain conditions.

To support weather forecasting operations during the Games, Environment Canada has enhanced its profiling remote-sensing network along the Sea-to-Sky corridor (Highway 99 in British Columbia). A 915MHz wind profiler has been sited down slope of the outdoor Olympic-Paralympic venues, and a second 915MHz wind profiler is planned to be located upslope of these venues. From these sensors, retrieved wind profiles can provide insight on the topographic influence over the local winds. Backscatter signals (calibrated with co-located measurements of raindrop-size distributions) can be used as analysis and nowcast guidance for precipitation-intensity. Magnitudes of the vertical Doppler velocity and backscatter signals can offer guidance for nowcasting precipitation type at the outdoor venues.

In summary, the study describes several UHF-radar techniques for nowcasting winter weather in complex terrain, which will be used in a demonstration context during the 2010 Winter Games.