About the Site
A Weather Moment is a non-profit website focused on weather commentary for the greater Winnipeg region as well as delivering useful tools designed to help acquire weather data for decision making processes. Additionally, A Weather Moment will occasionally share weather-related news or reviews. Usage of this website is subject to the terms of our disclaimer.
We currently produce 3 forecasts per week, made available at 6:30AM on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. These provide a brief overview and quantitative forecast for the next 3 days. Each forecast will also take a qualitative look at the long range outlook, which may cover Day 4 or 5 if there’s a major storm on the horizon, or into the 7-14 day timeframe if the weather is relatively quiet. Unless needed, we try to keep the forecasts brief (generally under 700 words) so that they can be a quick read and part of your morning planning.
Throughout 2017, we’ve also increased our store of climatological data for Winnipeg. In addition to monthly posts summarizing the prior month’s conditions, we run a climate page which has monthly and annual summaries of temperature and precipitation data for Winnipeg. Lots of enhancements are in the works for that section of the site, including a wealth of climatological records for Winnipeg.
We have a variety of tools available to help individuals assess the weather on their own, including:
- METAR Viewer: Access METAR observations (standard hourly weather reports) for numerous locations across North America and the world. Features customizable parameter highlighting in the METAR reports, as well as parameter-based graph generation and tabular output.
- Satellite Viewer: View and animate satellite imagery covering Manitoba, Canada, and North America from a variety of sources.
- RADAR Viewer: View and animate Environment and Climate Change Canada RADAR imagery in our easy to use image viewer.
- Model Viewer: View weather model imagery from a variety of sources.
These tools are aimed at allowing our users to quickly and easily obtain weather information that can help them make decisions based on what their specific weather sensitivities are. In the future we hope to migrate towards using more imagery produced ourselves; in 2018 we hope to have a variety of maps of current conditions available.
Our website also provides custom-created pages to display data from personal weather stations. We currently host one station from the Glenwood neighbourhood, but we hope to expand to include other PWS sites around the city in 2018. In the coming months we will also be introducing additional data pages to dig into the data archives of each PWS.
Ultimately, if you live in Winnipeg or the Red River Valley, we hope that some part of this site will be relevant to you! If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to get in touch with us!
About the Team
Brad Vrolijk (Creator, Lead Forecaster)
Brad lives in Winnipeg with his wife and two children and is the founder of A Weather Moment. Started with the intent to provide forecasts that offer both context and educational merit, his vision for the site has steadily matured and expanded over time. Brad has added a suite of tools to help users monitor the weather and make their own decisions based on the information available to them, including a viewer for current observations, satellite imagery, Environment Canada’s RADAR imagery and a large suite of model images. In addition, Brad has expanded A Weather Moment’s presence to Twitter and Facebook to allow for real-time engagement with users during significant or dangerous weather.
Brad grew up in Edmonton, AB and has loved the weather as long as he can remember. Boyhood fascination became more official when he received a Bachelor of Science in Earth Sciences with specialization in Atmospheric Science from the University of Alberta. Brad moved to Winnipeg in 2008 for employment opportunities and after meeting his wife decided that Winnipeg could, in fact, make a pretty decent home. Brad currently works in the field of meteorology and waits until the kids are finally tucked away in bed before writing his forecasts for A Weather Moment.
