Finnish Meteorological Institute to produce forecasts for Finland’s Olympics Ski Team in Sochi

FMI and the Finnish Olympic Committee have entered into an agreement, according to which the FMI will produce weather forecasts for Finland's Olympic Ski Team. These will be supplied via a web portal. Forecast services will include temperature and precipitation point forecasts for different competition locations, as well as animations on the weather's development in competition regions. "Weather forecasts will predominantly be used by the ski maintenance team in planning testing, as well as for predicting weather changes during competitions. The forecasts will also be available to coaches and team management," Teemu Lemmettylä, a representative of the Olympic Ski Team explains.

The FMI will also produce forecasts for road weather conditions in the competition areas. This will support the FMI's objective of developing and producing a number of different services for intelligent transport systems. The competition area is interesting with regard to research, as it is located in the mountains and near the sea, which means that driving conditions can change very quickly." Road weather forecasts will provide safety to the entire team, as team members will need to be transported to the Coastal Village for medal ceremonies and other events," says Teemu Lemmettylä.

Road weather forecasts are a part of the pilot testing for the CoMoSeF Project." In the long run, it will be possible to supplement a driver's tool pack with new innovative applications. Route forecasts for specific road sections and regional traffic weather warnings offer drivers use of more up to date and detailed information," Pertti Nurmi, Head of Meteorological Applications at FMI explains.

Weather service institutes test own weather products at the games

The Sochi Olympics will begin in sunny, high-pressure weather. The opening day will be mildly windy, and along the coast the day's high temperature will reach +5°C.

In Sochi, weather service institutes from various countries will test their own model and forecast products, which have been tailored to the local conditions.  Testing will be coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization and will allow a homogenous manner and shared area for testing and comparing weather models and forecast systems in challenging winter conditions. All these model and forecasting products will be in the use of meteorologists from the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet) and will be utilised in weather services produced for Olympic athletes. Similar projects have previously been realised at the Sydney Summer Olympics in 2000, the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008 and the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010. The FMI has been appointed responsibility for evaluating the quality of the forecasting products used at the Sochi Olympics both during and after the games.

Further information:

Finnish Meteorological InstituteFinnish National Ski Team service: Marja Aarnio-Frisk, tel. +358 29 539 3333, marja.aarnio@fmi.fiRoad forecasts and comparison of weather service products: Pertti Nurmi, tel. +358 50 500 3610, pertti.nurmi@fmi.fi