Road agency to get weatherman

Customized forecasts seen as edge in handling winter storms

Move over, Ned Perme. The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department is hiring its own weather forecaster.

Agency officials believe they need more timely and specialized weather information than what Perme, a longtime weatherman on television station KATV, Channel 7 in central Arkansas, and other television weather forecasters can provide. Or, for that matter, even the National Weather Service.

“It’s very location-specific information, and very valuable in determining how and when to treat weather-related events,” said Randy Ort, a Highway Department spokesman.

The move to a custom forecasting service is part of the lessons the department learned from the harsh winter weather.

The Arkansas Highway Commission earlier this month approved a department request to proceed with a contract for a custom forecasting service.

In the request, the department said it needed “custom forecasting services used by other states that provide hourly site-specific weather and road-condition forecasting” because “accurate and timely weather forecasts are a critical aspect of the planning and deployment of department resources in response to a winter weather event.”

The department developed the proposal as a result of meeting with Missouri Department of Transportation officials late last year to discuss ideas on how Arkansas could improve its response to snow and ice storms.

It began that process even before the second of two major storms this winter paralyzed much of east and northeast Arkansas for several days after rapidly deteriorating weather conditions immobilized traffic on parts of Interstates 40 and 55.

The problems were compounded by several days of subfreezing temperatures that followed the March 2 ice storm, which dumped an unusually large amount of sleet in a wide area that included Mississippi County.

That last storm and the department’s response led to criticism from Gov. Mike Beebe and others, as well as a legislative hearing.

Missouri has had its own custom forecasting service for several years, said Tim Chojnacki, a maintenance engineer with an emphasis in winter operations for that state’s transportation department.

“We do feel it gives us an edge to prepare our response,” he said.

The contract is only for a six-month period ending April 30 and costs about $25,000, which sounds like a lot until Chojnacki points out Missouri spends about $47 million annually on snow and ice removal.

For that $25,000, Missouri receives customized forecasts twice a day for each of its seven highway districts.

“With the National Weather Service and other [weather forecasters] you get a general area, but it doesn’t quite match up with our district boundaries,” Chojnacki said.

The forecasts include the probability of road and bridge icing and other information upon which state highway officials can act. The information is available on a website that all state highway officials can access.

“They are tuned into the transportation industry,” he said.

The contract also gives Missouri highway officials access through a toll-free number to a forecaster 24 hours a day. And when big storms are forecast, the contract includes a conference call with a forecaster before the storm.

And when conditions unexpectedly change, Chojnacki said, the forecasting service notifies department personnel by phone at any time of the day or night.

“Television news and the National Weather Service won’t reach out to you,” he said. “They call us. It gives us a little more heads-up.”

The agency’s latest contract is with a Santa Ana, Calif.-based company called Iteris, which bills itself as a “leader in providing intelligent information solutions to the traffic management market.”

Its products include what the company calls “hyper-local weather solutions,” including hourly site-specific weather and road condition forecasting, alerts for weather conditions and changes and “pavement forecasts and treatment recommendations.”

At least 14 other state highway agencies uses Iteris weather products, according to the company website.

Other companies offer similar custom weather-forecasting services and market them to state highway agencies, Chojnacki said.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/27/2014

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