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CANWARN Storm Spotter Training

With Geoff Coulson
Warning Preparedness Meteorologist
Environment & Climate Change Canada

Date: April 23, 2018
Time: 7:00-9:00 p.m.
Cost: Free

Location: Simcoe County Conference Room

County of Simcoe Administration Centre
1110 Highway #26
Midhurst ON
L9X 1N6

Please join us for a Storm Spotter Training workshop with Geoff Coulson, Warning Preparedness Meteorologist at the County of Simcoe Administration Centre.

Environment Canada's severe weather meteorologists have a variety of tools at their disposal to detect and track thunderstorm activity. These tools include weather radar, satellite imagery and a lightning detection network. This information can provide the meteorologists with a good sense of which storms may produce damaging weather like large hail, violent winds, flooding rains or tornadoes. However, they do not necessarily provide the meteorologist with a sense of what may be happening right at ground level. Therefore, real-time, on-the-ground information from trained spotters continues to be an integral part of Environment Canada's Severe Weather Watch and Warning Program.

CANWARN volunteers are trained to look for clues in the sky as to which storms may produce damaging weather. They can also report important information on hail size and any damage that has resulted from the passage of a storm. They can send in their reports directly to the Ontario Storm Prediction Centre through an unlisted, toll-free phone number, a special email address or through a local ham radio network if they are a ham radio operator.

Severe weather reports can also be sent in through Twitter using the hashtag # ONstorm. Information from all of these sources is monitored by the Weather Centre 24/7. Reports received by CANWARN volunteers often play an integral role in the decision to issue or update a warning bulletin for a given area and specific mention is often made of the type of information received by a storm spotter within the text of the warning bulletin.

CANWARN volunteers come from all walks of life; amateur radio operators, the Canadian Red Cross, first responders, municipal/provincial/federal government employees, teachers and many others. Environment Canada holds a series of training sessions across the province each spring to refresh the knowledge of existing volunteers and to welcome new volunteers to the program. The training normally lasts about 2.5 hours and there is no cost to attend. The training covers the basics of thunderstorm formation, what differentiates a severe from a non-severe thunderstorm, the types of damage severe thunderstorms can produce, what to watch for in the sky, what to report to the Storm Prediction Centre and a series of safety tips.

For more information on the program, please contact Warning Preparedness Meteorologist Geoff Coulson. geoff.coulson@canada.ca