Vaisala IceCast NowCast Controller

NowCasting Software

When the forecasting of road surface temperature and ice formation is improved, it becomes possible to improve winter road and runway maintenance processes.  Advance warning of overhead wire ice events also allow rail operators to better plan their winter processes. To this end, Vaisala has developed an automated ice NowCasting model. This model incorporates the Vaisala IceBreak Heat Balance Model, which dispenses with the need for human intervention. As a result, Vaisala is able to provide 3 hour NowCasting of surface / overhead wire temperature and state for specific weather station (RWIS / ESS) locations. This is particularly valuable for monitoring potential weather hazards and mobilizing resources in time to take effective preventive action.

IceBreak is the world's most popular ice prediction model, used by more than 10 national meteorological services to deliver forecasts to road, rail and airport authorities. Vaisala has used the NowCasting model in many different places around the world.

NowCasting provides the facility for the road, runway or rail operators to independently generate short-term forecasts. NowCasts are 3 hour automatically generated forecasts of surface temperature and state for specific weather stations.

Key features

• 3 hour NowCasts for surface temperature and surface state (can be extended to 6 hours with additional Mesoscale data)
• NowCasts are viewed in IceView
• No human input required
• Time at which the NowCasts are produced defined by the user
• Temperature level below which the NowCasts are produced per site defined by user
• Can be used to produce NowCasts of overhead cable temperatures and states for rail applications

Forecast graph displayed within the IceCast IceView display software. The graph shows four short range NowCasts displayed as differently hashed lines, spanning 3 hours each.