Largest weather network in Western Canada

The Canadian Wheat Board’s partnership with WeatherBug has evolved into a service that will be very useful to producers. This private weather network, linking on-farm monitoring stations was launched two years ago. I’ve checked it out on-line a couple of times and I was underwhelmed. Now, the CWB and WeatherBug have launched a website at www.weatherfarm.com and it does provide a unique service. The 700 field stations are linked via the Internet and you can get real time data from any of the weather stations. Most producers will be pretty close to at least one of the stations so the information will be pertinent. You can see the temperature, wind speed and wind direction at any given moment. You can also look back at the weather variables from previous hours, days or weeks. WeatherBug is now installing lightning detection sensors, which will detect cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning activity. This should allow for advanced detection and alerts of severe weather. With the network that’s been established, all sorts of additional features should be possible. To check it out, just log onto www.weatherfarm.com and fill out the little bit of registration information that’s required. I’m Kevin Hursh.