On February 8, the Chinese team won the 9th Asian Winter Games curling mixed bronze medal in the event mixed pairs curling third and fourth place final. Let's go to the curling game site and see how meteorology has served the game behind the scenes.

The 9th Asian Winter Games curling hall meteorological observation station . Photoed by LIU Dong

Curling games require a very high level of environment, and meteorological conditions exert a crucial impact on the ice surface. On September 25, 2024, Heilongjiang Provincial Meteorological Service constructed 1 meteorological observation station on the southwest side of the curling hall, and on December 4 of the same year, 8 small meteorological observing stations were constructed in the curling venue. These meteorological stations, which are adopted for the first time for the narrow space in the curling hall, have the characteristics of integration, modularization, intelligence, low power consumption, etc. The collected data are transmitted to the Heilongjiang Provincial Meteorological Data Centre, and then uploaded to the Meteorological big data cloud platform “Tiangqing” for the application of various software platforms to display.

One of 8 small meteorological observation stations. Photoed by LIU Dong

Meteorological service personnel utilized the monitoring stations distributed in eight directions in the curling hall to monitor the temperature, humidity and wind speed in real time in the rink and provided the humidity, temperature and wind conditions of the hall to the main ice maker in a timely manner in the three phases of the game: before, during and after the game. In the course of the game, once there are situations affecting the environment of the venue such as spectators entering, dehumidifiers or exhaust fans being turned off, the meteorological information will be provided more frequently once every 15 to 20 minutes, so as to provide the main ice-maker with a more refined meteorological reference for the timely adjustment of the devices.

Curling hall weather service personnel and the ice maker to discuss the indoor environment . Provided by LIU Dong

Meteorological service personnel also flexibly coordinated the operation of exhaust fans and dehumidifiers based on monitoring data and the needs of the main ice maker. When it was found that the dehumidifier at the audience entrance was working resulting in a breeze from the southwest, timely coordination would be made to turn off the dehumidifier to control the wind speed, while taking into account the changes in humidity to ensure that it is within the controllable range. If there was a trend of exceeding a certain indicator, timely communication with the main ice maker would be made and appropriate measures will be taken.

The curling hall meteorological service personnel and the equipment device maintenance staff in the curling hall were testing the operation of the equipment. Provided by LIU Dong

Editor: JIANG Zhiqing