Introduction
JCT has teamed up with the Met Office to offer two new locationbased products: Monthly Planning Averages and Monthly Downtime Summaries. The reports are designed specifically for project planning and management, helping you to minimise the impact of weather on your project and complement the weather clauses found in JCT contracts.
Ric Robins, Business Group Head of Meteorology and Science at the Met Office states “we have collaborated with the construction industry and JCT to develop two new weather summary reports, location-based monthly planning averages and downtime reports. Combining our expertise with JCT’s contractual expertise gives greater protection and support to customers.” These trusted and accurate weather reports for the construction industry, help guide and support in the planning phase and evidence requests for extension of time during or post project.
Our reports explained…
Location-based planning averages reports
Location-based planning averages reports provide expected conditions for a given month at a given location. By looking over a thirty-year period you can understand the monthly norms to expect on site.This information gives guidance in developing contingency plans and negotiating realistic contracts,tenders and preparing for weather related risks.
These clear and easy to use reports are available for up to 11 weather parameters from 3,600+ locations around the UK. The greatly increased number of site locations compared to he traditional 100 station based sites mitigates the previous issue of having Location & Station based downtime report to pick a location from a limited number of weather stations, which can often be a long distance or unrepresentative of your project location. Having access to specific build location weather data will allow a greater confidence in the weather information obtained.
This added knowledge and information will allow contractors to proactively plan for realistic weather impacts over the course of a project, ensuring that builds are given the best opportunity to meet their deadlines and organisations to protect their reputations.
Location-based downtime summary reports
Monthly downtime summary reports provide you with detailed weather conditions actually experienced at your site for your months of interest. These conditions can be compared to their corresponding long-term averages and 1-in-10 year values identifying weather conditions that fall outside of normal parameters which could not have been planned for, therefore supporting your claims foran extension of time.
Using over 30 years of weather data these detailed but easy to use reports provide values for up to 16 different weather parameters for the same 3,600+ locations across the UK, again allowing for the most representative information to be used. The reports easily identify when a 1-in-10 year value has been
exceeded by highlighting each weather parameter in red or green allowing for a quick and efficient decision to be made with the knowledge it’s coming from a trusted, independent source of information and expertise.
Science behind the Location-based reports
To generate the location-based reports, the Met Office combine the historic gridded database of long-term average weather values with a database of present observations used to drive the weather forecasting models run on the Met Office’s Supercomputer. Our system has been rigorously tested to ensure robustness and accuracy.
So, how can you mitigate the risk of weather?
To avoid unforeseen delays to your build programme Ric Robins, provides his expert advice. “The risk of severe and unseasonal weather like rain, wind and lightning need to be given careful consideration, to avoid the adverse impacts of dealys to construction projects.” According to Robins, key weather data is available from the Met Office via JCT to help mitigate the risks of weather from negatively impacting the management of construction projects.
To find out more, visit JCT’s website: https://www.jctltd.co.uk/jct-met-office-weather-reports