Canada's weather service - 140 years old and respected worldwide

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Since its founding in 1871, our national weather service has grown to be the authoritative source for the weather information upon which most of us rely each day

by HENRY HENGEVELD

This past summer, Canada's weather service – one of the oldest public service institutions in Canada – celebrated its 140th anniversary.

Although systematic weather data had already been recorded by research staff at the Toronto Observatory (located at the University of Toronto) since 1840, our national weather service officially began in 1871. Canada was only five years old at the time, and Sir John A. MacDonald was still our Prime Minister.

That year, the Government of Canada granted Dr. George Kingston, professor of meteorology at the University of Toronto and the director of the Observatory, a sum of $5,000 to establish a "Dominion Meteorological Service" and to create a national network of weather observing stations. Kingston located the first Canadian weather office at 315, Bloor Street West, at the north end of the University of Toronto campus.

This location remained the headquarters of the Canadian weather service for the next century, until it was finally relocated to the north Toronto suburb of Downsview in 1971. 

The task of organizing a national weather observing and forecast service was not an easy one.  In 1871, Canada had very limited cross-country communications facilities. It was also a land of very diverse weather and climates conditions.

Not surprisingly, most of the early observing stations were located in southern Canada near railway lines. At these locations, observers could regularly telegraph messages to the Toronto office for further processing. During the earliest years of the service, these observations would be forwarded to the American weather service in Washington. In exchange, the American agency would telegraph weather warnings back to Canada, so that these could be circulated back to the telegraph offices across Canada. Most members of the public would  have to go to the nearest railway station to read about these warnings.

Two years later, this very limited service got a large expansion in its mandate and funding, largely because of the "Great Nova Scotian Cyclone," a hurricane that swept across Cape Breton in the summer of 1873, destroying some 1,200 boats, 900 buildings and many bridges, and claiming some 500 lives. That year, the Toronto weather office began its own national weather warning system.

By 1876, all major cities in Eastern Canada were linked by telegraph lines to the Toronto forecast office. Now forecasts issued at 10 a.m. each day (except on Sunday) could be transmitted to these cities within minutes and be posted on public buildings. 

The weather service has gone through many revolutionary technological changes since those early attempts at observation and forecasting. In 1920, the introduction of radio communications enabled observations to be gathered from – and forecasts sent to – remote locations far removed from land telegraph lines (including ships at sea).

In 1963, the first weather satellite pictures became available to help provide information in the large expanses between weather observation stations, and from areas over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

The next major revolution in weather forecasting came with the advent of advanced computing technologies in the 1980s. Canada's weather service acquired its first super computer in 1983.  This allowed forecasters rapidly to compute the solutions to complex mathematical equations describing physical and dynamical processes evolving in the global atmosphere. This soon resulted in a dramatic improvement in the ability to predict the changes in the behaviour of the atmosphere over the next week or so, and allowed more detailed regional and local forecasts for all regions of Canada. 

Today, Environment Canada's national weather service, known as the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC), continues to be the authoritative source for the weather information upon which most of us rely each day. Surveys indicate that about nine out of every 10 Canadians check the weather forecast at least once per day and use the information to make decisions about their daily activities.

We can access weather information by radio, dedicated weather channels, internet and – as of this past summer – with our smart phones. Direct access to historical weather data and climate information is now also available via the internet. The MSC further provides public warnings about other environmental health hazards, including daily spring and summer forecasts of the UV index that help us reduce the risk of damaging sunburns.

All of this, of course, comes with significant costs in manpower and financial resources.

Last year, environmental monitoring and prediction services provided by MSC involved some 1,700 full-time employees and 2,500 or so volunteer observers. Total expenditures for these services were almost $200 million. There is also a substantial research effort supporting the further development of weather forecasting methodologies and technologies. 

These resources will decrease significantly over the next few years due to cross-the-board federal budget program cuts, causing considerable concern amongst weather and environmental professionals about the weather service's ability to continue to deliver the quality of forecasts that Canadians have become accustomed to.

However, despite these resource setbacks, there has been – and continues to be – great international respect for the professionalism of Canadian weather monitoring and prediction services and the people that provide them.

There were two more indicators of such respect during this past year. In June 2011, the World Meteorological Organization elected David Grimes as its new President. Grimes was a former weather forecaster with the Meteorological Service of Canada, who rose through the ranks to become its current Assistant Deputy Minister.

One month later, the International Council of Scientific Unions, the body that represents the national academies of sciences from nations around the world, also elected Dr. Gordon McBean as its new President. McBean, like Grimes, started his career as a forecaster. After many years as a professor at the University of British Columbia, he came back to MSC to become Grimes' predecessor as its Assistant Deputy Minister. 

Congratulations are in order to MSC on its 140th anniversary of weather services – and to these two men for their past and current roles in promoting excellence in meteorological and natural sciences in Canada and beyond. BF

Henry Hengeveld is a retired climatologist.