Thursday, February 12, 2009

Some change in the weather?

Now this story got a big "Ah ha!" moment out of me. The federal government's environment commissioner is questioning the accuracy and efficiency of weather forecasting in Canada, especially when it comes to extreme weather warnings. This story focuses mostly on Toronto, but you get the idea. The report says Environment Canada

"...lacks an effective national approach to verifying the timeliness and accuracy of the 10,000 or so annual warnings of tornadoes, blizzards, major thunderstorms, extreme hot and cold weather and other severe weather."


Remember how I said Environment Canada sucks at predicting bad weather up here? Well, hell, everybody in Iqaluit think Environment Canada sucks at predicting weather up here. Well, now you have a federal commissioner saying they suck at it (and everywhere else) and the Minister agreeing more must be done.

(This report was released a week ago, but it's the first I've heard of it.)

All right, so there's a problem - a federal commissioner says so, the Minister says so and the weather service seems to be looking at it's feet and shuffling them a bit and muttering, "yeah, there could be problems." Granted this seems more focussed on verifying how accurate they were rather than making sure they get it right the first time. Still, it's a start.

Now it would be nice to see some action and improvements. I don't expect miracles to start tomorrow. But if I'm still bitching about the weather service's inability to properly predict bad weather in Iqaluit in two years time, then it's time for people around here to kick up a real racket. Two years is more than enough time to make a serious start on fixing this problem.

We need better weather prediction for severe weather up here before there are deaths.

Last Five (It's my favourite Workman song and my favourite Case song. I can't pick which is best)
1. Turn the page (live) - Bob Seger
2. Here it goes again - OK Go
3. Love is nothing - Liz Phair
4. I wish I was the moon - Neko Case*
5. Autumn's here - Hawksley Workman*

2 comments:

Jackie S. Quire said...

Sweet mother of god I leave for 3 days and all my stories get done.

(*&*&%$(*(%$#

Anonymous said...

Came across your page looking for others who find that Environment Canada weather forecasting sucks. Man does it suck! Changes every 2 hours and within those 2 hours neither the precip or temperatures are correct. The last 2 hours the forcasted temp fell 8.5 C short and a new weather warning issued. Not just recently but for years now Environment Canada must be cozying up to the Ministry of Health and partaking in their marijuana legalization "studies" - they're smoking something! Would be funny but my tax dollars go to those boneheads.