The basis of the viewer is that you can look at historical climate trends using metrological data. Can track weather patterns back to 1901. In 1901, Alberta had 10 stations, and now over 500 metrological stations across Alberta, collecting hourly data, which is how the information is gathered.
Ralph has managed Agriculture Forestry and Rural Economic Development's (AFRED) meteorological network since 2003. Over the past 19 years his group has installed over 190 new weather stations across the agricultural areas in the province. To ensure the integrity and accessibility of this data, they have built a robust data quality control system along with a public-facing website that serves both historical and near real-time weather data products and services to Albertans. Much of this work centred on the task of assembling all of Alberta's meteorological data back as far as 1885.
Ralph has M.Sc. in soil physics from the University of Manitoba and a diploma in Watershed Management from Lethbridge Community College. He has worked extensively with meteorological data since 1993, producing several computer models, as well as many other products and services offered on AFRED's Alberta Climate Information Service (ACIS) found at www.weatherdata.ca or on the weather data viewer.
