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CANWARN is a volunteer organization
of ham radio operators who report severe weather when they see it to Environment
Canada. What they do is called ground-truthing. They confirm on the ground
what satellites and radars see in the atmosphere. When Environment Canada's
weather centres issue severe weather watches or warnings, they alert the
CANWARN volunteers at the organization's regional stations in the affected
areas. The volunteers contact other CANWARN members on the ham radio, tell
them a watch or warning has been issued and ask them to report signs of
approaching severe weather. These include lightning, hail, cumulonimbus
clouds or as they are known in the trade CBs, and funnel clouds, which
if they touch down are then called tornadoes.
CANWARN is organised in local networks.
When CANWARN members spot severe weather, they send their reports to the
CANWARN network controller who forwards them to Environment Canada's severe
weather office in Toronto using either a special telephone line or the
CANWARN web page. At the weather office, the severe weather meteorologist
combines the data from the satellites and radar with the information from
the ground to refine the forecast or prepare a severe weather watch or
warning. In Ontario, CANWARN stations are equipped with computers, printers,
and ham radio equipment, and are located in community centres such as airports,
police stations and senior citizens complexes.
Expanding their community service
Ham or amateur radio operators have
long played important roles in their communities, particularly during emergencies.
These men and women run very high frequency, VHF, or ultra high frequency,
UHF, radios from their homes, offices, cars or trucks and so are in a good
position to help when normal lines of communication have been knocked out
by a tornado, fire or explosion. 
Their roles expanded after the Edmonton
tornado on July 31, 1987. The tornado which had winds of more than 400
kilometres an hour ploughed through the Alberta city in the mid afternoon
killing 27 people, injuring 253 others and causing more than $250 million
in damage. The report on the Edmonton tornado and the weather warning system,
known informally as the Hage report, said Environment Canada should solicit
the help of amateur radio operators in the severe weather watch and warning
program.
Within a week of the report's publication,
Environment Canada had trained more than 120 ham radio operators in the
Windsor area to detect severe weather. At first CANWARN operated primarily
in southwestern Ontario. Today, there are CANWARN stations in towns and
cities from Windsor through to eastern Ontario and Parry Sound on Georgian
Bay. There are also CANWARN stations in Northwestern Ontario, including
places like Thunder Bay, Fort Frances, Dryden, and Kenora. CANWARN volunteers
cover most of the areas of Ontario that are likely to have severe weather.
CANWARN is active (to varying degrees) in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Environment Canada trains ham radio
operators to spot and report severe weather. They learn about the structure
of storms, the types of clouds to watch for and what the department's severe
weather watches and warnings mean. All CANWARN volunteers are encouraged
to sign up for the refresher courses which the department offers each year.
Any licenced ham radio operator may become a CANWARN volunteer. Men and
women who are studying for their licences or are listeners of short wave
radios may join CANWARN as associate volunteers.
For information about CANWARN
please send an email to: Canwarn.OntarioRegion@ec.gc.ca
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CANWARN TRAINING
DATES 2010
Windsor - Monday, April 12th
7 PM - Caboto Club 2175 Parent Avenue
London - Tuesday, April 13th
7 PM - Four Points Sheraton Hotel 1150 Wellington Road
Hamilton - Saturday, April
17th 9 AM - Nash Auditorium, Wilcox Building, Chedoke Hospital, Sanitorium
Road
Sarnia - Tuesday, April 20th
7 PM - Kinsmen Centre (Oakroom Room) 656 Lakeshore Road
Peterborough - Tuesday, April
20th 7 PM - Canadian Canoe Museum 910 Monaghan Road
Kitchener - Wednesday April
21st 7 PM - Bingemans Conference Centre - 425 Bingemans Centre Drive
Orillia - Saturday, April
24th 9 AM - Highwayman Inn - 201 Woodside Drive
Toronto - Saturday, May 1st
9 AM - Environment Canada Headquarters 4905 Dufferin St (Dufferin south
of Steeles Avenue)
Cornwall - Saturday, May 1st
9 AM - Cornwall Legion 415 Second St. W.
Ottawa - Saturday, May 8th
9 AM - Kanata Legion 70 Hines Road
Sudbury - Saturday, May 15th
9:30 AM - Lionel E. Lalonde Centre 239 Montee Principale, Azilda
Sault Ste Marie - Sunday,
May 16th 7 PM - Waterfront Inn - 208 St. Mary's Drive
Timmins - Monday, May 17th
7 PM - Days Inn - 14 Mountjoy St. South
North Bay - Wednesday, May
19th 7 PM - Ontario Provincial Police Communication Centre - 877 Gormanville
Road
Northwestern Ontario - week
of June 7th - exact dates/locations to be determined in next 2 weeks
Message from;
Geoff Coulson
Warning Preparedness Meteorologist
Folks…hope everyone has been enjoying
the amazing start to the month of March. The warm, sunny weather is a prelude
to what we will be seeing a lot more often by late April. The return of
warm and humid weather in April will also herald the start of the spring/summer
severe weather season in Ontario. This severe weather will take the form
of powerful thunderstorms capable of producing damaging winds, flooding
rains, large hail and tornadoes. The 2009 season had a number of significant
events. On July 9th three American tourists lost their lives in a fishing
camp in Northwestern Ontario north of Dryden when a Fujita Scale 2 tornado
moved through the camp. On August 20th, 18 tornadoes were spawned from
a series of supercell thunderstorms that moved over southcentral and eastern
Ontario. These 18 tornadoes represented a new Canadian record for most
tornadoes in one day. Yet another milestone will be reached this spring,
May 31st, 2010 will be the 25th anniversary of the Barrie and Grand Valley
tornadoes…the last confirmed Fujita Scale 4 tornadoes to occur in Ontario…that,
between them, took 11 lives.
CANWARN
volunteer storm spotters continue to play an integral role in Environment
Canada's severe weather watch/warning program. I would encourage you to
come out to a training session near you especially if you haven't been
to one in a few years. By now, most of you have received your CANWARN ID
card…many were given out during last year's training then a number of others
were mailed out. There will be a supply of cards at each training session
for those of you who don't have a card yet. In order to keep our database
up-to-date, I would ask you to send in any changes to your contact information
(i.e. new email address, mailing address, phone number etc..) to the canwarn.ontarioregion@ec.gc.ca
account. Also, I would appreciate getting emails to the canwarn.ontarioregion@ec.gc.ca
account indicating which CANWARN training session you intend to participate
in…this will help us get a sense of numbers ahead of time. During the sessions
this year we will also be promoting two email addresses that can be used
to report severe weather…they are storm.ontario@ec.gc.ca and tempete.ontario@ec.gc.ca,
these accounts are monitored 24/7 by weather centre staff and represent
yet another way you can provide information concerning breaking weather.
On behalf
of my colleagues at the Ontario Storm Prediction Centre, I would like to
thank all of you for being a part of this very important program. Your
timely reports of severe weather are greatly appreciated and help in increasing
the safety and security of the people of Ontario. I look forward to seeing
some of you at the training sessions this year. So without further ado…here
are the list of this year's sessions as things stand now…I will be sending
updates out in the coming weeks as other dates/venues are firmed up. |
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Note: In an effort to
update the list of Canwarn operational frequencies all members are asked
to review the list posted below and report any errors or omissions.
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