Canadian Radar

[Alex Goldstein]

Just out of curiosity, when chasing up north, how do you all get radar? I haven't been able to find any radar in Canada that is even remotely high definition.

[Robert Edmonds]

I know wxworx has data plans that have Canadian radar. I don't remember how much of Canada is covered, and I don't know where else to find it since I don't go that far North usually. However, I bet some others have a better idea than I do.

[Dennis Sherrod]

Hey Alex,
I don't lnow how much this will help, but try this link and see if this may help.

http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/radar/index_e.html

[Dennis Sherrod]

One more link that may help you find some info.

http://usasearch.gov/search?affiliate=nws.noaa.gov&v%3Aproject=firstgov&query=canada

[Adam Ball]

The first link from Dennis is the only place I've ever seen Canadian radar on the web. It may not be the greatest, but it sure beats what they had 5-8 years ago. Back then there were about 5 different colors for reflectivty, and they were the weirdest colors. Something like pink for weak returns then yellow and light blue. It just hurt your eyes to look at it.

If you stay near the border you can usually use the NWS radars (however you get that, web, software, etc...) pretty well.

-adam

[Mike Smith]

We can sell it to you.

[Bob Schafer]

I have no clue where I got them, I've never used them, and they aren't all radar, but here are a couple other "Canada bookmarks" I saved a few years ago :

http://www.flightplanning.navcanada.ca/cgi-bin/CreePage.pl?Langue=anglais&NoSession=NS_Inconnu&Page=forecast-observation&TypeDoc=html
http://www.saskatoonscanner.com/storms/

[Tom Stefanac]

Accuweather is another source for Canadian radar but the resolution is not much different from what is available via the government website.

http://www.accuweather.com/canada-radar-local-index.asp?partner=accuweather&postalcode=

In short there is no high resolution radar data available for free.

Tom

[Jayson Mills]

I use the weather network or Enviorment Canada's websites

[davecarlsen]

Yeah, EC owns all the RADARs. So anything you get off of Accuweather or TWN or anywhere else is just re-packaged. I hope better stuff comes out sooner rather than later--I mean, there's a lot RADAR more info available than what's out there on the web!

[Patrick Boomer]

In Alberta's hail alley, we are fortunate to have another radar operated by Weather Modification Inc (http://weathermod.com/weather_radar.php) for their hail suppression program (http://weathermod.com/weather_radar.php) here. It shows storm heights, tracks and speed, also offering good coverage of the foothills in the gap between the radars near Calgary and Edmonton. Also shows the tracks of the planes as they are out on their seeding runs.

[Aaron Kennedy]

Heh...
http://weathermod.com/assets/index.php

Anyone want to purchase a C-Band radar? ;)

[John Wetter]

With the lock on the data, I always just go here:
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/radar/index_e.html
and select the site I want.

[Marc Rémillard]

I created this google earth plugin:
http://www.quebecvortex.com/photos/Stuff/QcV_Radars_V1.1.kmz

Right now it contains QC and ON only, I can add some more if you want.

screenshots:
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/4057/ss2ww5.jpg
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/810/ss1mf0.jpg

[John Erwin]

I created this google earth plugin:
http://www.quebecvortex.com/photos/Stuff/QcV_Radars_V1.1.kmz

Right now it contains QC and ON only, I can add some more if you want.


Nice work Marc! I've been working on this myself, although in my case I was using client-side scripts to remove the background map and graphics. The PHP solution seems a bit more elegant though!

I think this approach gives you a product somewhat better than what you get from the EC website, although the radar is still low-res. Maybe someday they'll open up the data a bit...

[JF Massicotte]

Maybe someday they'll open up the data a bit...

I've heard from good sources that EC may plan something like this in the near future. But the same individual also told it was not part of their priorities and any project about this will need approval before any further development.

Well at least they seem to be considering the question...


Nice work Marc! I've been working on this myself, although in my case I was using client-side scripts to remove the background map and graphics. The PHP solution seems a bit more elegant though!

I can tell you that Marc can do some miracles with a computer.

[Tom Stefanac]

If they do open up the data hopefully it will be within real time. I remember when they first had the radar online it is was terrible, hourly updates?

Then finally they decided 20 minutes updates were good enough, with of course a 20 minute delay!

Then they finally moved to the 10 minute mark with a 10 minute delay. I don't know about anyone else but a 5 minute delay for me is enough, 10 minutes is 5 minutes too long!

Synoptic data and the FX discussion are a whole different story, it is harder to get that kind of data than even radar data!

I am never optimistic one bit with EC.

[JF Massicotte]

Hi Tom,

The Montreal office releases an outlook map that covers the province.

It is not an official outlook product and used only for internal purpose so they will not provide any support for this product.

You can get this map here: (http://meteoalerte.com/)
Then click on ''Risque Orageux'' in the left menu.

You can also access data from the GEM on this website. (http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/vizaweb)

EDIT: see next msg for pword.

[JF Massicotte]

Finally looks like it's open to public:

User: vizaweb
Pass: vizaweb

[John Erwin]

If they do open up the data hopefully it will be within real time. I remember when they first had the radar online it is was terrible, hourly updates?

The cable company here used to carry a live radar feed on one of the channels that anybody could look at. Low res, but certainly better than the 10 minute delay we have now. We have a long way to go..

[Tom Stefanac]

Thanks for the GEM data JF!!!! The link is great. It is nice to finally have access to some of the operational data as it becomes available. Also thanks for the severe wx map link, I will be sure to check it in the warm season.

Really thanks a ton!

On another note, I believe it was a common practice back in the 1980's to have the cable company carry the live radar data, several others have also told me about that from completely different parts of the country. I would not have been old enough at the time to remember but that would have been a nice feature.

[Phil Kurimski]

I use this site for the GEM:

http://meteocentre.com/models/modelsgem_e.html

The 00Z model runs out to 240 hours so you have something to compare the GFS to. The 12Z run only goes out to 48 though.

[Scott A. Kampas]

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_weather_radar_network) has a good article detailing history, location and technical information of each radar, and scanning strategies. The radars are C-band rather than S-band, but as far as I know are fairly comparable to the WSR-88D in resolution and abilities. They're named WSR-98 so have been around a while, it's about time that data was available online. It still is a wonder to me that the governments of Europe and Canada which are so sharing and communal in other ways have been so scant in providing various meteorological data.

[rdale]

It still is a wonder to me that the governments of Europe and Canada which are so sharing and communal in other ways have been so scant in providing various meteorological data.

Because the people of Europe and Canada don't feel that paying more taxes to put the data up freely is worth it... They make a LOT of money selling that data, so don't collect extra from the general public. I'd argue that 99% of the American public doesn't know (and would object if they did) that NEXRAD L2 elevation 14* data is being distributed for free because of their tax dollars.

[Tom Stefanac]

Because the people of Europe and Canada don't feel that paying more taxes to put the data up freely is worth it... They make a LOT of money selling that data, so don't collect extra from the general public. I'd argue that 99% of the American public doesn't know (and would object if they did) that NEXRAD L2 elevation 14* data is being distributed for free because of their tax dollars.

Well I don't know if higher taxes would solve the issue, we already pay enough of them as it is, but I see it more as a mandate issue. Other government agencies have legislation forcing them to release data to the public (consider the CRTC and Industry Canada).

There has never been a bill or act passed which would force the organization to distribute the data freely beyond whatever the minister sees fit. Environment Canada's mandate is "to provide to Canadians environmental information in the public interest;" but it does not define what types of services, or to what extent and that is the problem. The other thing is that a large degree of the budget has been spent of climate issues as opposed to more traditional ones (severe weather, operational met). Environment Canada's budget is roughly 1% of the NWS budget so it is easy to how diversion of funds can have a profound effect but it still does not provide a sufficient justification in my mind for data hoarding. Especially when it has already been funded.

But this goes back to the old argument of funding and competition and the scare a few years ago that the NWS was going to be chained down by Accuweather for economic reasons. The bill of course was shot down by congress but you guys all remember how panicked everyone got. In Canada if we let Environment Canada funding drop and force them to rely more and more on external funding from the sale of services it is going to become impossible in the future to have free public data which is not restricted in some fashion.

I have argued for a dual service similar to NOAA-PORT where you have free data on the public service and special access data on a more reliable pay server, so long as the data is the same and not limited or restricted.

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/showdoc/cs/E-10/bo-ga:s_1::bo-ga:s_2?page=2

[Scott A. Kampas]

Yeah, I'm aware of proprietary data and the money made selling it.

[Patrick McCarthy]

Back to the "where to get Canadian radar" topic...WXWORX does have "hi-res" imagery but it looks to be heavily smoothed:

http://www.wxworx.com/ground/services_pricing.php [second item]

The highest resolution data, including Doppler, is only available internally and at password protected Canadian University websites (they use it for research).

If you're looking for links while chasing the Canadian Prairies, my website has a lot of links collected for just that purpose:

http://members.shaw.ca/wxdog/FPWDs.htm

Besides, cheap EC radar, it has links to Canadianwatches/warnings, outlooks, etc.

The University of Manitoba Atmospheric Science website also has links:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/environment/envirogeog/weather/

Pat