Snow Forecasting on Remote Highways: Strategies and Performance Measurement

The Mountain Weather Centre, located in Kelowna, British Columbia, is responsible for issuing daily snowfall forecasts for an array of mountain highway locations throughout BC. These forecasts are issued, in most cases, without the aid of conventional surface and radar data. The forecast program, done in conjunction with the BC Ministry of Transportation and Highways, supports road clearing and avalanche control activities along several vital east to west transportation corridors. These transportation arteries traverse a number of mountain ranges from the Pacific coast to the Rockies. The challenges associated with issuing quantitative snowfall forecasts, in a rather remote region, are discussed. In addition, a recently developed near real-time, web-based performance measurement system will be described along with its goal as a quality improvement tool. Finally, some verification results from the winter of 1999-2000 will be presented.