The Meteorological Service of Canada is a division of Environment and Climate Change Canada, which primarily provides public meteorological information and weather forecasts and warnings of severe weather and other environmental hazards. MSC also monitors and conducts research on the climate, atmospheric science, air quality, water quantities, ice and other environmental issues. MSC operates a network of radio stations throughout Canada transmitting weather and environmental information 24 hours a day called Weatheradio Canada.
Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type. Modern weather radars are mostly pulse-Doppler radars, capable of detecting the motion of rain droplets in addition to the intensity of the precipitation. Both types of data can be analyzed to determine the structure of storms and their potential to cause severe weather.
This is a list of meteorology topics. The terms relate to meteorology, the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting.
The constant altitude plan position indicator, better known as CAPPI, is a radar display which gives a horizontal cross-section of data at constant altitude. It has been developed by McGill University in Montreal by the Stormy Weather Group to circumvent some problems with the PPI:
The bounded weak echo region, also known as a BWER or a vault, is a radar signature within a thunderstorm characterized by a local minimum in radar reflectivity at low levels which extends upward into, and is surrounded by, higher reflectivities aloft. This feature is associated with a strong updraft and is almost always found in the inflow region of a thunderstorm. It cannot be seen visually. The BWER has been noted on radar imagery of severe thunderstorms since 1973 and has a lightning detection system equivalent known as a lightning hole.
The King City weather radar station is a weather radar located in King City, Ontario, Canada. It is operated by Environment Canada and is part of the Canadian weather radar network, for which it is the primary research station.
The Canadian weather radar network consists of 33 weather radars spanning Canada's most populated regions. Their primary purpose is the early detection of precipitation, its motion and the threat it poses to life and property.
The Canadian Meteorological Centre, located in Dorval, Quebec, is the branch of Environment Canada's Meteorological Service of Canada that is tasked with providing forecast guidance to national and regional prediction centres, and is responsible for running the Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) model, often referred to as the CMC model, together with its regional and ensemble variants. It is made up of three branches:
The Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences of McGill University is the largest university atmospheric-oceanic sciences group in Canada. In 2012, it has 11 Faculty and 6 Associate Faculty members, 5 support staff, 14 research associates and postdoctoral fellows, and 31 graduate students. It is known worldwide, in particular for weather radar research and Arctic studies. It has operated the second oldest weather observatory in Canada since 1862.
Convective storm detection is the meteorological observation, and short-term prediction, of deep moist convection (DMC). DMC describes atmospheric conditions producing single or clusters of large vertical extension clouds ranging from cumulus congestus to cumulonimbus, the latter producing thunderstorms associated with lightning and thunder. Those two types of clouds can produce severe weather at the surface and aloft.
The Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium is a Belgian federal institute engaged in scientific research in the field of meteorology. The RMI depends on the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO). The institute is a member of the World Meteorological Organization, of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, of EUMETSAT, and of the EIG Eumetnet.
Dr. André Robert was a Canadian meteorologist who pioneered the modelling the Earth's atmospheric circulation.
The Alberta Hail Project was a research project sponsored by the Alberta Research Council and Environment Canada to study hailstorm physics and dynamics in order to design and test means for suppressing hail. It ran from 1956 until 1985. The main instrument in this research was an S-band circularly polarized weather radar located at the Red Deer Industrial Airport in central Alberta, Canada.
The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) is the national meteorological service of the Republic of Korea. The service started in 1904 joining the WMO in 1956. Numerical Weather Prediction is performed using the Unified Model software suite.
Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) is a joint mission between JAXA and NASA as well as other international space agencies to make frequent observations of Earth's precipitation. It is part of NASA's Earth Systematic Missions program and works with a satellite constellation to provide full global coverage. The project provides global precipitation maps to assist researchers in improving the forecasting of extreme events, studying global climate, and adding to current capabilities for using such satellite data to benefit society. GPM builds on the notable successes of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), which was also a joint NASA-JAXA activity.
Nowcasting is weather forecasting on a very short term mesoscale period of up to 2 hours, according to the World Meteorological Organization, and up to six hours, according to other authors in the field. This forecast is an extrapolation in time of known weather parameters, including those obtained by means of remote sensing, using techniques that take into account a possible evolution of the air mass. This type of forecast therefore includes details that cannot be solved by numerical weather prediction (NWP) models running over longer forecast periods.
The raindrop size distribution (DSD), or granulometry of rain, is the distribution of the number of raindrops according to their diameter (D). Three processes account for the formation of drops: water vapor condensation, accumulation of small drops on large drops and collisions between sizes. According to the time spent in the cloud, the vertical movement in it and the ambient temperature, the drops that have a very varied history and a distribution of diameters from a few micrometers to a few millimeters.
The Joint Polarization Experiment (JPOLE) was a test for evaluating the performance of the WSR-88D in order to modify it to include dual polarization. This program was a joint project of the National Weather Service (NWS), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the US Air Force Meteorological Agency (AFWA), which took place from 2000-2004. It has resulted in the upgrading of the entire meteorological radar network in the United States by adding dual polarization to better determine the type of hydrometeor, and quantities that have fallen.
John Stewart Marshall was a Canadian physicist and meteorologist. Researcher for the Canadian government during the Second World war and then professor at McGill University from 1945 until his retirement in 1979, he was renowned for his research in cloud physics and precipitation, but especially for being a pioneer of weather radar.
Roger M. Lhermitte was a French meteorologist who "pioneered the development of meteorological Doppler radar." His career extended from the 1950s until his death where he made numerous contributions to the field of Radar Meteorology resulting in over 100 publications and numerous patents.
