City of Elliot Lake councillors have voted to approve a $118,000 expenditure that will put our city on the world’s weather map in a much bigger way.
They have approved purchase of the Vaisala Automation Weather System which will produce real time 24-hour-a-day weather data as observed at the Elliot Lake Airport.
The high tech system is robotic and will observe temperature, wind speed and direction, hours of sunshine, cloud cover and sky conditions, along with barometric pressure, relative humidity, precipitation and other meteorological data. All of that will happen without the need for any human input.
Aviation interests such as pilots and airlines will have access to much improved data from the new weather system which was acquired at a cost much lower than the $150,000 dollars allotted for it in the 2018 budget. The data will also be fed to the Weather Network and other weather forecasting agencies and organizations in Canada and around the world.
Councillor Ed Pearce told council, “This is long overdue. We should have done it a long time ago.”
He noted it’s necessary to attract more traffic and maintain safety standards at the Elliot Lake Airport. Because of the savings, the city expects that installation of the new equipment and work necessary to ensure it performs as expected will be covered comfortably in the $150,000 dollar council budget allocation approved earlier this year.
The Vaisala Automation Weather System is fully expandable and upgradeable and should be able to accommodate any changes and improvements made necessary by emerging new technology or increased local needs. The weather equipment should be installed at the Elliot Lake Airport in a few months.
