Operational services for water

• Make the right decisions, at the right time
• Protect your assets
• Ensure operational efficiency

Our operational services at a glance:

Access a meteorologist 24/7

Interact with a meteorologist 24/7 for site-specific or regional forecasts, or to gain insight on any aspect of the weather across the UK - by telephone, video briefing or via on-site deployment. 

Demand forecasting

We work with customers to develop a year-round water demand model for individual companies, regions or individual resource zones.

Annual reporting of demand or leakage

Our models provide detailed weather-dependent leakage, demand, burst, seasonal night use and turbidity data.

Decider

Help predict future trends and consequences with Decider. Our solution assists with the interpretation of large amounts of probabilistic data, provided by ensemble forecasting systems. 

Forecast toolkit for turbidity and rainfall runoff

Forecasting turbidity, rainfall runoff and soil moisture deficit will help organisations ensure cost-efficient clean water treatment and effective operational and catchment management.

Water quality can be directly impacted by intense rainfall events.  These rainfall events combined with pre-existing moisture in the ground can cause surface run-off, washing mud and pollutants into the watercourse.  Knowing when to expect higher water turbidity helps to plan water treatment and storage, saving costs and increasing time-efficiencies.

Understanding when to expect an increase in agricultural surface runoff into water catchments helps when working alongside farmers and landowners to prevent or reduce contamination.  It provides the knowledge to advise farmers when to effectively plan their pesticide, fertiliser and slurry applications.

Using high-quality, reliable observations and modelled data, we can support short-term planning (14 days) and operational management.  Forecasts are available for a point or points at a location, for example, a reservoir or river catchment.

Freeze-Thaw™ early alerting service

The Freeze-Thaw™ service provides alerts of pipe-freezing events up to 14 days in advance, and when to expect a thaw, followed by a rise in water demand.  This allows managing 'freeze-thaw' events more effectively to minimise impacts on customers and demonstrate due diligence to regulators.

The service can help to:

• Gain time to prepare and minimise the impact of 'freeze-thaw' on customers with an early up to 14 days Freeze-Thaw™ alert system.
• Quickly understand the severity and impact of an incoming 'freeze-thaw' with the Red-Amber-Green alerts.
• Know when to expect a thaw, followed by a rise in water demand.
• Free up valuable time to focus on other tasks with constant monitoring and threshold-triggered alerts.  Updated daily from November - March, every time monitored parameters reach set thresholds, it triggers an alert and sends an email with either a red or amber notice.
• Show due diligence to regulators and customers, through pro-active and efficient management of 'freeze-thaw' events.

VisualEyes™

VisualEyes™ is an easy to use, web-based weather alert system.  It provides five-day weather forecasts combined with site-specific, probabilistic charts and bespoke alerting.

Burst pipe modelling

We model the relationship between low temperatures and call centre volumes related to burst pipes to help manage resources and minimise the impact of burst pipe events.

Nowcast

Protect water networks with frequent and accurate short-range rainfall forecasts.  The current weather is mapped, and then an estimate of its speed and direction of movement is used to forecast the weather a short period ahead.  Nowcasts can be used as a source of detailed guidance on the location, extent and timing of imminent, often high impact weather events. 

The Met Office produces a routine delivered service for T+0 out to T+6 for the UK, which blends our observations and UK Atmospheric Hi-Res model. At T+0 the blend is heavily weighted to observations and as time goes on, the weighting of the UK Atmospheric Hi-Res model is increased, at T+6 the UK Atmospheric Hi-Res Model has the dominant weighting. Delivery is File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

The weather variables available include:

• Cloud
• Precipitation
• Temperature
• Humidity
• Visibility
• Wind
• Lightning  

Hazard forecast

The five-day tailored hazard forecast covers a variety of weather parameters, including maximum rainfall rate, rainfall accumulation, temperature, snow, lightning risk, and wind. This information is scaled to town level, which makes it possible to pinpoint areas of concern, enabling the appropriate resources to work in the required areas. 

The forecast is delivered twice a week in summer, and four times a week during winter. Significantly, tailored thresholds have been set which means a RAG (Red-Amber-Green) hazard status is shown.  Adding further value to the forecast, highly skilled Met Office meteorologists provide commentary and confidence thresholds.

In addition, meteorologists are available on the phone to discuss the forecast and give expert advice on the potential impacts of the weather. 

For further information or to arrange a chat with us, please provide your details in the contact form on this webpage.