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Fort Walton Beach, Fla. — May 30, 2016 — When MetLoop first demonstrated its precision weather-forecasting technology to Jay Butch of CertainTeed Corp., he knew it was something that contractors should have at their disposal on a daily basis.
“MetLoop’s technology is as state-of-the-art and cutting-edge as it gets,” said Butch, CertainTeed’s director of contractor programs.
As a result, Metloop and CertainTeed entered into partnership discussions and have now announced an agreement in which CertainTeed’s contractors receive exclusive access to MetLoop’s technology at special discounted rates.
“We’re thrilled to be aligned with CertainTeed,” said MetLoop Chief Global Strategist Trevor Leeds. “It is one of the most dominant companies and manufacturers in the industry with rock-solid relationships with thousands of credentialed contractors. We’re proud to be associated with them and offer their contractors our unique platform. It brings tremendous added value to both MetLoop and CertainTeed.”
MetLoop’s technology enables contractors to know if a hurricane, tornado, or any other weather disaster is going to directly hit a particular home or building — and when — with 95 percent accuracy. The technology was created by a team of contractors, meteorologists, and developers who detected huge inaccuracies with weather-forecasting companies.
“Nothing like this has ever been available before to contractors,” Butch said. “This is a great tool for our credentialed contractors. It is a game-changing technology because it’s predictive versus reactive. To me, that’s the biggest plus. It allows contractors to see what’s coming and know exactly where a storm is going to hit. It gives them a jump on the competition and gives them another critical touch point with their customers. It’s a win-win all the way around.”
Previously, only the U.S. military had access to this unique technology that provides the most accurate weather forecasts possible. MetLoop negotiated a deal to re-purpose the military-grade weather-forecasting technology for the civilian market, bringing a new level of accuracy and specificity that did not previously exist.
“In the military, with lives and equipment at stake on the move or in battle, military forecasters have to be accurate,” said Rocco Calaci, MetLoop’s chief meteorologist who has 40 years of experience, including 20 years as a senior meteorologist for the U.S. Air Force. “We now use the same technology. We provide the highest degrees of accuracy from the first alert to the time of impact.”
MetLoop is the only company that only uses meteorologists who are both military-trained and NEXRAD certified. The combination of this uniquely trained team with a proprietary system “changed the industry landscape,” Leeds said. “We have address-specific alerts — not broad-area forecasts but alerts based on precise locations.”
Severe weather forecasts and alerts were typically broad-based, covering large geographical areas that include many properties that are not directly impacted despite receiving weather alerts.
“This is because the alerts are based on algorithms that are not designed to be highly specific and often miss smaller weather events altogether,” Calaci said.
MetLoop, on the other hand, receives real time, raw data from every Next-Generation Radar (NEXRAD) station across the country, as well as thousands of smaller weather-monitoring devices.
It also uses military-trained, operational forecasters to interpret this data and produce highly-granular alerts and forecasts down to the individual building level, 24/7.
