TRUCKING

Wintertime trucking can be an adventure. Icy roads, snowbound destinations, travel restrictions can all conspire to delay your trucks from getting through. SkyWatch Weather center can identify the weather affecting your distribution area and let you make an informed choice on the best routes for your drivers.

When you're locked into a route and schedule, we can tell you how weather will affect the trip, so you can anticipate inevitable delays, and warn your clients accordingly. When the weather is bad enough that your delivery vans will require chains, you'll know in time to install them without disrupting deliveries.

SHIPPING

The days are gone when a merchant ship depended upon "fair skies and a following wind" to get to the next port. That doesn't mean that the weather is no longer a concern to shipping. In this age of global positioning systems and weather-tracking satellites, real time information is a given.

You need to know what's going to happen, not what's already taking place. With sufficient warning, you can skirt trouble areas, save time, and avoid weather hazards to your ships and crews.

PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION

Busses and trolleys, trains and tramways all are affected by winter storms and severe weather. Ice storms are particularly hazardous to systems which use overhead wires to supply motive power to the transportation system. Often, one downed wire can cripple an entire line. Forewarning of these storms might allow operators to "deadhead" extra cars on off-hours to minimize the line loading.

RAILROADS

Railroads continue to transport a significant portion of the raw materials and finished products in the United States. While routes are fixed by the railway infrastructure, there are still significant effects of the weather on operations. Bulk shipments of raw materials such as pulverized coal, metallic-bearing ore and limestone are done in open-topped gondola cars. During the winter months, rain and snow accumulation, along with sub-freezing temperatures, can combine to clump the product into a solid, immovable mass. Unloading at the destination can involve jackhammering the product into manageable chunks.

SkyWatch Weather can give the operations manager a forecast of the precipitation and weather that a shipment will experience between source and destination. Pretreatment of the load with antifreeze agents can eliminate a lot of manual labor and the delays associated with removing frozen material at the end of the trip.

For more information contact our webmaster or call us at 1-800-SKYWATCH  1-800-759-9282

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