Road Weather Management Program
photos of lightning, trucks plowing snow, an empty road before a storm, and an evacuation
Office of Operations 21st century operations using 21st century technologies

Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

Title:

Setting Verification Targets for Minimum Road Temperature Forecasts

Abstract:

Road temperature forecasts have become increasingly important over recent years with the advent of road temperature sensors. These sensors help both the forecaster and the customer in order to keep our roads in a usable state each winter and also provide a means by which forecasts can be verified and subsequently improved. Several verification measures have been used of which three are examined in this paper. It is demonstrated that potential targets for these measures need to be adjusted accordingly to the frequency of frost at any particular site and more appropriate targets are then suggested. These targets are obtained by the use of standard statistical distributions that are applied to data collected over the past few years from road temperature sensors across the British Isles.

Source(s):

Meteorological Applications of the Royal Meteorological Society Vol. 2, Newcastle Weather Centre (United Kingdom). For an electronic copy of this resource, please direct your request to WeatherFeedback@dot.gov.

Date: 1995

Author:

Halsey

Keywords:


Forecast/Prediction
Ice/Frost

PDF files can be viewed with the Acrobat® Reader®.

Office of Operations