CONSTRUCTION, PAVING, & CONTRACTORS

Let's say you have a big decision to make about tomorrow's rain-sensitive activities, and a wrong decision will cost your company thousands of dollars. The forecast you hear on radio and television is "partly cloudy with a 50% chance of rain." Now what do you do?

The Skywatch Weather Center is well known by decision makers in the construction industry as a proven solution to weather information problems since 1980. Weather has cost you money in the past, and the problem will not go away, but here are some examples of how you can trim your losses:

• It's 10 a.m., you have 12 paving crews out, and it starts to rain... hard. Radio and TV forecasts call for a 50% chance of scattered showers. Forecasters in the Skywatch Weather Center are diligently watching their maps and radar display, and predict the rain will last through 3 p.m. Your supervisor is listening to the radio, and assumes this is just another scattered shower that will last only about a half-hour, so he keeps the crews out. The rain doesn't stop, everything's soaked by 1 p.m., and he cancels the rest of the day. At an average of $240 per hour per crew, your company just wasted $7,200.
  
• You have plans to pour about a hundred yards of highway concrete at one of your counstruction sites, and radio forecasts call for a 60% chance of scattered thundershowers. The supervisor on site figures the job will take about three hours. It's high noon and the sky is blue, bright and innocent-looking. No hint at all of rain. The decision is made to proceed with the pour. Meanwhile, back at the Skywatch Weather Center, color radar indicates a line of developing thunderstorms 60 miles west of the big pour, heading east at 30 miles an hour, with no further activity behind the line. At 1:45 p.m., the sky suddenly turns darker. By 2:00 p.m., a vicious storm with high winds and heavy rains is in progress. Wind gusts to 40 mph make it impossible to even try to get the job covered. At 2:30 p.m. the thunderstorm is finished, and so are about a hundred yards of concrete and a bunch of crew-hours. Total cost for cleanup and re-pour comes to $10,000. Had Skywatch been consulted, the pour would have been delayed or postponed.
  
• How about the same situation as above, except that it involves a bridge deck? Now what's the cost? $20,000? $30,000?
  
• How about 20 crews reporting to work on a rainy day, only to be sent home after two hours? About nine-thousand dollars?
  

In each example, the Skywatch Weather Center could have saved you thousands of dollars, with just one forecast. This team of professional forecasters can be available to you every minute of every working day. Over the duration of a project, you could realize substantial savings.

Skywatch will call the project office every day (voice, fax, etc.) with a detailed forecast for the following two days and a general daily outlook through seven days. Meteorologists will continue to monitor conditions and issue timely updates if necessary. In addition, foremen and supervisors can call Skywatch toll-free as often as necessary, seven days a week, for specific information about each job location.

There is no long-term contract involved. You can terminate the program any time, such as when the project is completed or during seasonal curtailments.

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