Chicago Area Snowfall Team (CAST) How to Get More Snowfall Reports
Jim Stefkovich Meteorologist In Charge National Weather Service, Chicago
WFO Chicago Area of Responsibility
Chicago The Center of the American Economy!
52,000 truckloads of freight leave CHI each day (six interstates and 3,138 miles)
46% all industrial real estate is warehouse/distribution
World’s #3 container handler (after Hong Kong and Singapore)
50% or all US rail freight pass through city (39,000 carloads/day)
No single point on earth handles as much Internet activity
City Environment
and New York only US cities with majority of office space downtown 660,000+ people flow downtown every business day
14 million business travelers each year (#1 destination in US)
Chicago
O’Hare and Midway
O’Hare Airport – 931,000 Operations, 2003 100 Employees on paid standby if 60% POP or higher of snow
Why Reports Are Needed!
Use of “Official” site (O’Hare) not representative of ChicagoLand Forecaster “Angst”
One inch of snow equates to millions of dollars in snowfall removal contracts O’Hare Operations City Operations 233 snowplows downtown alone Property Management
TV Weathercasters and Forecasts
Private Consulting Companies
Volunteer Requirements
Twice per day Observations (Oct-Apr) Proper site location
Internet access
Setting up a Site
Inputting Data
CAST OUTPUT
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO IL 700 PM CST WED JAN 14 2004
CHICAGOLAND SNOWFALL AND SNOW DEPTH REPORTS. DATA PROVIDED BY NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO AREA SNOWFALL TEAM 12 HR SNOWFALL ENDING 6PM TODAY 12 HR SNOWFALL ENDING 6AM TODAY TOTAL SNOW DEPTH AT 6 PM
LOCATION
ILLINOIS
BARTLETT 1.2 BATAVIA 0.8 BEACH PARK 3.9 …… 0.0 0.0 1.0 2 1.8 6.5
CAST and COOP Data Combined
And The Results?
“We Use it Every Day it snows” – ABC Weathercaster “A huge help in seeing snowfall amounts around the city” – WGN Weathercaster “We use it in our business and are certain contract snow removal companies use it as well.” – Chicago Based Private Meteorological Company
Useful Information for NWS River Forecast Center
And The Future?
Continue to expand network throughout all counties (next “call” for volunteers in September) Work with EMs, broadcast media and private partners to increase observations where needed.