By Vestnik Kavkaza
Three weeks before the Olympic Games in Sochi it became obvious that weather at the Games will be perfect. The head of the HydroMetCenter of Russia, Roman Vilfand, says that at the moment snow covers almost all Olympic facilities. This year snow fell early in Sochi. “Natural snow cover will lay on all Olympic facilities,” Vilfand said. “But in fact professional athletes prefer artificial snow, as it is more homogeneous and one has no needs to choose wax. Therefore, artificial snow will be put above the natural cover. It is very important, as natural snow cover is necessary for artificial snow cover.”
Since February 5-6 the goal of meteorologists will be connected with weather support of all people involved into the Olympics. And the weather support will be unusual. “To forecast weather for a day or three is not typical for the Olympics. For example, there is fog in the morning, we should forecast when it will thin – in 20 minutes or in 3 hours. A shift of a start will depend on this. There is certain weather on one slope of a mountain and a different weather on the other slope of a mountain. Dynamic of weather development should be predicted,” Vilfand explained the meteorological task.
The RosGidroMet have prepared for this for 4 years. “A mesoscale model of the Sochi region was adopted; it describes weather changes in every 2.2 km. Meteorologists know how to use information from the model; and its quality is high. New equipment was fixed in the Sochi region. It includes a microrain radar, a Doppler radar on Akhun mountain. It means monitoring of current information and using received information from the model; special meteorological calculations will be used in full extent,” Vilfand said.
According to him, “the Olympic team” of meteorologists was formed: “The best meteorologists with work at the Olympics and Paralympics. These are 37 people headed by the deputy head of the HydroMeteoCenter of Russia, Valery Lukyanov. We are ready for giving acute forecasts for the biathlon area, the roundabout area, the speed skiing area, and so on.”
It is interesting that following a recommendation by the World Meteorological Organization, many meteorologically developed countries joined the weather support at the Olympics – the USA, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Italy, the South Korea prepare forecasts for the same territory. Now Russian meteorologists analyze all these forecasts, trying to achieve the most precise and reliable forecast.
