CANWARN, acronym for CANadian Weather Amateur Radio Network, is an organized
severe weather spotting and reporting program organized and run by the Meteorological Services Division of
Environment Canada. What CANWARN members do is called
ground truth
Ground truth is information that is known to be real or true, provided by direct observation and measurement (i.e. empirical evidence) as opposed to information provided by inference.
Etymology
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (s.v. "ground t ...
ing, they confirm and add information to the
remote sensing
Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Eart ...
observations of
satellites and
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
as well as provide information not observable by these technologies.
The program was first theorized by members of the Windsor Amateur Radio Club in Windsor, Ontario in 1986. Randy Mawson VE3TRW, Paul Robertson VE3HFQ, Jerry Beneteau VE3EXT and Bill Leal VE3ES established the original parameters and processes at that time with the first training session held in Windsor during the winter of 1986/1987 at the Windsor Airport, home at the time of the Windsor Weather Office of Environment Canada. Paul VE3HFQ and Bill VE3ES were literally putting the final touches on the station (VE3YQG) located at the Windsor Weather Office in early April 1987 when the very first CANWARN net was called to order. A report of a tornado in south east Michigan on a path towards Essex County was relayed to Environment Canada's severe weather desk in Toronto, Ontario.
Later that year, after the Edmonton Tornado and at the request of the Hage Report
[Hage, K.D. (1987) Review of the Weather Warning System Associated with the Edmonton Tornado of July 31, 1987] CANWARN was expanded beyond the initial program run out of the Windsor (Ontario) Weather Office. Organized storm spotting in Canada had existed prior but operated independently of Environment Canada and never fully achieved the success that the CANWARN program did. Initially, CANWARN was predominantly based in southern Ontario and central Alberta but eventually grew to encompass the entire country by the early 1990s.
The United States began a national storm spotting program in the 1950s. Prior to that, it too had only local spotting programs. In the 1970s, it increased spotting efforts and launched its
Skywarn
Skywarn (sometimes stylized as SKYWARN) is a program of the National Weather Service (NWS). Its mission is to collect reports of localized severe weather in the United States. These reports are used to aid forecasters in issuing and verifying sev ...
program, which partly inspired CANWARN. In the 2000s, Europe also began organized spotting efforts under the auspices of
Skywarn Europe Skywarn Europe is a network of volunteer storm spotters throughout Europe based on the U.S. Skywarn program (a similar program, Canwarn operates in Canada).
Its members attend severe weather training courses and deliver real-time observations of ...
, which consists of autonomous branches in about a dozen countries.
See also
*
Amateur Radio Emergency Service
In the United States and Canada, the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) is a corps of trained amateur radio operator volunteers organized to assist in public service and emergency communications. It is organized and sponsored by the Amer ...
References
External links
Canwarn homepageRadio Amateurs of Canada CANWARN Page
1987 in Canada
Meteorological Service of Canada
Emergency communication
Meteorological data and networks
Amateur radio emergency communications organizations
Emergency management in Canada
Amateur radio in Canada
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