Tone Ag Consulting Ltd.

Knowing about the weather is key in agriculture.  If someone could come up with a way of predicting the weather ahead of time with 100% accuracy, they would be rich.  Everyone would know what crops to plant, when to plant them, and how to time all the subsequent crop operations.  Unfortunately, even short-range forecasts are subject to change as the wind blows where it will.

Historical Weather

We may not be able to predict the weather, but Manitoba does a pretty good job of keeping track of what the weather has been across the province.  We find this very useful in damage claims – if the wind was from the south, it’s not likely that chemical drifted a long way against the wind. 

Every once in a while we are asked to comment a damage claim that’s several years old, so it’s good to be able to go way back and see what the weather was like at the time of damage.  For almost every claim, we will note the wind direction and speed on the damage date.  For some claims, precipitation, temperature, and weather can be important information as well.

National Climate Data and Information Archive has weather information going back over a hundred years in some places.  It usually takes them a little bit to update their current data

Manitoba Ag-Weather Program has stations scattered throughout the agricultural portion of Manitoba. They also include soil temperature with their weather data.

If someone’s looking for a project to fill quiet days, a map showing the location of all the weather stations in Manitoba would be a very useful tool.