News
Alberta climate and moisture updates available
June 4, 2013 - Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development's AgroClimatic Information Service (ACIS) collects data from more than 350 stations throughout the province and provides farmers, ranchers and producers, access to meterological data and maps based on this data.
The ACIS website is a portal that producers can bookmark and refer to frequently. Features available on this webpage include links to:
- Radar Imagery updating every 10 minutes, overlaid on Google Maps, zoomable to your location
- Weather station summary, giving you current conditions for your favorite station
- Weather condition maps showing meteorological observations from across the province
- Near real time weather station data, available back to 2005 along with several derivatives
- Frost probabilities, growing degree days, potato days temperature and precipitation normals, wind-chill and others
- irrigation scheduling tools
- Maps of precipitation, daily fire danger, soil moisture and other elements, some all the way back to 1961
- Agricultural moisture situation updates
Ralph Wright, Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development's agrometerology applications and modeling section head, provides moisture updates which include maps and comparisons to previous years' data.
One new feature that was added just last year is Google map interface where producers can zoom in on their own area and track local thunderstorms. This map updates every 10 minutes and makes it possible to storm track, generally within about 1000 meters. Producers can now keep an eye on a weather event and know if they need to take action. To view this feature, click here.
June 4, 2013 By Janet Kanters
