The Rural Voice, 1979-05, Page 5What this country needs is
A good
three day
EVERY FARMER'S NIGHTMARE — This Corn crop,
photographed outside the town of Exeter in Huron County, was
badly damaged by a summer storm in August, 1969. (OMAF )
weather forecast
BY ALICE GBB
Someone once said, what this country
needs is a good five cent cigar, but a
number of farmers would be more likely to
say, what this country needs is an accurate
three day weather forecast.
Reliable weather information, for at least
a three to five day period, would be
godsend not only during spring planting
and harvest, but also when livestock or
produce is being transported for sale.
The problem of reliable forecasts is a
question that concerns weathermen as well
as the farm population. In a recent
interview in the Globe and Mail, veteran
CFRB weatherman Bev Cudbird said,
"Despite all the new technology, forecasts
aren't much more accurate today than they
were 30 years ago. One great potential
advance is weather satellites that survey
the earth from outer space (Canada doesn't
own one of the these) but so far they give
us only a 'nowcast' of what the weather is,
not a forecast of what it's going to be."
The broadcaster added, "Meteorologists
produce a forecast valid for one or two days
and I'm not sure how useful or important
that is. After all, a farmer is just about as
good as we are at predicting weather one
day ahead. What we need are pinpoint,
accurate forecasts good for five days, or
two weeks. That could save Canada billions
of dollars."
Terry Gillespie, an agricultural meteor-
ologist at the University of Guelph, agrees
that what is needed are some good two or
four week forecasts, maybe even a
seasonal regional forecast of temperature
and moisture anomalies or abnormalities.
Prof. Gillespie is optimistic that success-
ful, longer-term regional anomaly forecast
techniques will be developed before the
end of the next decade. In the meantime,
farmers must learn to use the weather
information that's now available.
Since this country's climate and day-to-
day weather has such a major effect on our
agricultural industry, Professor Gillespie
believes we have to "roll with the climatic
punches."
THE PUNCHES
One method of "rolling with the
punches" is to study long-term trends that
have developed in temperature and
precipitation in the past.
Terry Gillespie said scientists now have
evidence that over the period of a few
decades, the weather does seem to go
through cycles where it is "more tranquil.'
The meteorologist said scientists use a
30 -year average as the "normals" to study
weather conditions to find when they are
more tranquil and when weather is very
changeable.
The professor said evidence accumu-
lated would suggest that the decades in the
middle part of this century were unusually
tranquil, with this cycle ending in the
1970's. He said scientists know we're in a
variable period of weather now, and that
this will be a period of some length. The
question facing scientists is how to time
these cycles of variability and how to plan
strategy to handle the patterns.
Prof. Gillespie said much of the
agricultural technology that farmers are
using today developed in the cycle of
tranquil weather patterns, which means
some adjustments may have to be made
now we're back in a time of climatic
variability.
When climate patterns in an area change
gradually over a long period, farmers in the
affected region can make an orderly shift
THE RURAL VOICE/MAY 1979 PG. 3