TRUCKING
Wintertime trucking
can be an adventure. Icy roads, snowbound destinations, travel restrictions
can all conspire to delay your trucks from getting through. SkyWatch Weather
center can identify the weather affecting your distribution area and let
you make an informed choice on the best routes for your drivers.
When you're
locked into a route and schedule, we can tell you how weather will affect
the trip, so you can anticipate inevitable delays, and warn your clients
accordingly. When the weather is bad enough that your delivery vans will
require chains, you'll know in time to install them without disrupting deliveries.

SHIPPING
The days are
gone when a merchant ship depended upon "fair skies and a following
wind" to get to the next port. That doesn't mean that the weather is
no longer a concern to shipping. In this age of global positioning systems
and weather-tracking satellites, real time information is a given.
You need
to know what's going to happen, not what's already taking place.
With sufficient warning, you can skirt trouble areas, save time, and avoid
weather hazards to your ships and crews.

PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION
Busses and
trolleys, trains and tramways all are affected by winter storms and severe
weather. Ice storms are particularly hazardous to systems which use overhead
wires to supply motive power to the transportation system. Often, one downed
wire can cripple an entire line. Forewarning of these storms might allow
operators to "deadhead" extra cars on off-hours to minimize the
line loading.

RAILROADS
Railroads
continue to transport a significant portion of the raw materials and finished
products in the United States. While routes are fixed by the railway infrastructure,
there are still significant effects of the weather on operations. Bulk shipments
of raw materials such as pulverized coal, metallic-bearing ore and limestone
are done in open-topped gondola cars. During the winter months, rain and
snow accumulation, along with sub-freezing temperatures, can combine to
clump the product into a solid, immovable mass. Unloading at the destination
can involve jackhammering the product into manageable chunks.
SkyWatch Weather can give the operations manager
a forecast of the precipitation and weather that a shipment will experience
between source and destination. Pretreatment of the load with antifreeze
agents can eliminate a lot of manual labor and the delays associated with
removing frozen material at the end of the trip.

Copyright © 2001, Air Science Consultants, Inc.