| Vaisala News 170 / 2005 Maria Rita Leccese Managing Director Eurelettronica Icas Srl. Rome, Italy

Getting ready for the Winter Olympics 2006 in Turin

Getting the weather forecast right is vital for any outdoor sports – particularly the Winter Olympics. The meteorological authori- ties in Turin are relying on Vaisala equipment to provide the best weather data for their Olympic event.

ARPA Piemonte has been the Piemon- Olympics. To prepare for this, in Decem- te regional environment agency in Italy ber 2003 ARPA Piemonte opened a me- since 1995. It focuses on risk prevention teorological center in Sestriere. The goal and the reduction of air pollution, as well is to collect measurements on meteoro- as on water quality. Since November 2002, logical conditions and the status/devel- the tasks of hydrological, seismic and me- opment of snow surface, and to develop teorological risk management - including local weather reports to meet the needs avalanche risk - have also been included of the different sports. in ARPA Piemonte’s duties. The existing monitoring network will ARPA Piemonte manages a regional feed important data to the forecast cen- real-time network of about 500 automat- ters in Turin and Sestriere. In addition, ic weather stations, two autosondes, two ARPA Piemonte procured an interna- weather radars, one radar wind profiler, tional tender to acquire new stand-alone and one temperature profiler. equipment and sensors to upgrade the Mr Stefano Bovo heads the department ARPA Piemonte’s department “Area existing surface network. This network responsible for weather measurements and Previsione e Monitoraggio Ambientale” upgrade is being executed by Vaisala forecasts for the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics. manages the forecast center in Turin, as a joint-venture with Eurelettronica which is responsible for the monitoring, Icas, Vaisala’s long-term representative The stations work based on a program surveillance and forecasting of hydrome- in Italy. that instructs them what to measure, teorological events. The center is oper- log, calculate and report. A basic setup ated all year round, and supports the civil Easy-to-use portable is loaded in the program memory at the protection operations in the region. The equipment factory. This allows the customer to just center provides weather forecasting ser- Vaisala supplied 16 mobile Vaisala Hy- connect the sensors and communication vices by monitoring significant meteo- droMet™ Automatic Weather Stations lines and supply power to the station to rological phenomena and offering now- MAWS201, 4 portable Vaisala Present have it up and running. The stations al- casting and short and medium range (2-3 Weather Detectors PWD22, as well as low the customer to freely reconfigure the days to 1 week) forecasts in the region. Vaisala MetMan™ Network Software. setup files or make totally new ones. They Specialized snow forecasts are also pro- The contract also included the supply are equipped with flash memory for easy cessed to provide local assistance in the and installation of additional equipment, data reading on any PC with a PCMCIA Alpine area; the snow surface is continu- such as video cameras for environmen- slot. Data is collected using the network ously monitored to prepare ski tracks for tal monitoring, and global and net solar software through the GSM/GPRS com- sports events, and avalanche danger is radiation sensors for the existing auto- munication network. monitored to regulate the access and use matic weather stations. The present weather detectors were of ski areas. The 16 portable weather stations were supplied for use both with the portable supplied with pressure, temperature, hu- weather stations and in fixed installa- Meeting the needs of midity, wind and solar radiation sensors, tions. With a visibility measurement different sports and equipped with solar panels. Each sta- range of 10-20,000 meters, the Vaisala ARPA Piemonte is the exclusive provider tion comes in two robust and light boxes, Present Weather Detector PWD22 is a of meteorological services for the Winter which can be easily brought to site and two-in-one forward scatter visibility and Olympics 2006 in Turin. ARPA Piemonte installed in less than 30 minutes by one present weather sensor. will provide assistance in monitoring and operator. No special tools are required forecasting the most important weath- and everything the operator needs is in- er parameters during all phases of the cluded in the installation kit.

170 / 2006 Vaisala News |