Canadian Telemetry Data

Does anyone know of a good source of Canadian Telemetry data (in particular for Roger's Pass / Golden Area)? I figure they have to have something similar to our telemetry but haven't found much online.

I did find this data for Revelstoke, but it's a little too low down to really be helpful:
climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climateData/...=2011&Month=3&Day=13

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

For BC, the River Forecast Centre collects Automated Snow Pillow data from a number of remote telemetry sites. They do have a site at 1770 m (5800 ft) on Mount Revelstoke (unfortunately that site appears to be down most of this year), but nothing closer to Rogers Pass or Golden:

bcrfc.env.gov.bc.ca/data/asp/realtime/

This data is similar to that from SNOTEL sites in the US ( www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/ ), in that it has only temperature, precip, snow water, and snow depth -- there is no wind or humidity data as there is at NWAC sites, nor any 24 hour snowdepth (which requires manual clearing daily). However, the data reliability is much worse than at SNOTEL or NWAC sites, there are typically lengthy outages and long periods of missing data at many of the BCRFC sites.

In addition, there is no easy way to view the actual data online: you can get a comma-separated-values file of the last 7 days for each site, but it is not formatted in any way. To get around this issue, I wrote a PHP script which formats the data from the BCRFC telemetry sites, showing either the last day or all 7 days:

www.skimountaineer.com/MtnWebCams/BC-SnowTel.html

As of right now, that script only includes sites in southwestern BC (which is all I needed when I wrote it), but it would be very easy to include the sites for the entire province if there was enough demand (probably less than an hour of work to do that). I was hoping that BCRFC would get their act together and provide some way for the public to view the data properly, I shouldn't have to be the one writing code to view their data. Maybe they do have something now, that I don't know of?

While you cannot view the telemetry, Parcs Canada maintains weather stations at both Roger's Pass and Mt. Fidelity. You can access the high and low temperatures, the amount of snowfall, the precipitation load, and winds for those sites daily by going to Avalanche.CA, clicking on Avalanche bulletins then clicking on Partner bulletins and selecting Glacier. When the avalanche forecast for Glacier National Park comes up, simply scroll to the bottom of the page to see the weather info. Older bulletins can also be accessed so you can peruse backward through the weather information.

Thanks a lot guys. It's disappointing there's nothing available of the caliber we get in the WA, especially when Canada has such a well funded avy forecast department. Maybe I should just be thankful we get the great telemetry data we do .

Amar - it'd be cool to see this data for additional sites, but if I'm honest this is the first time I've looked for anything outside of southern BC (for a hut trip to Fairy Meadows) so it might not be worth your time (especially is the Revy telemetry site if often out of commission).

I guess I'll just watch the forecast, read the bulletins, and do bunch of digging when we get there (which was what I was going to do anyway).

Thanks again!

Andrew

I have been to FM several times. The snowpack in the North end of the Selkirks (Adamants) can be quite different from Rogers Pass. I asked friends working at the CMH Adamants for latest snow pack information. CMH is quite supportive of the backcountry ski community. If you email them prior to your departure and ask (nicely) for snow profile info they may pass it on to you. (I was able to call the lodge itself and you might be able to do the same.) They are just to the west of FM and you will ofter hear the bird flying if it is nice.

The CAA's north columbia report is somewhat relavent. If you know a guide in BC they can tell you what the latest InfoEX is reporting as well.

FM is mind blowing. Have a good time.

This just came to my attention and looks really promising.  Put out by the Applied Snow and Avalanche Research Group at the University of Calgary it has Canadian telemetry sites on a Google Map.


www.thesnowpit.com/arfi/#


Some of the data requires a login apparently. It is in beta so they are soliciting feedback.