Today, Environment and Climate Change Canada confirmed the launch of improvements to its severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings, helping people in Canada receive clearer, more timely information to stay safe during severe weather events.
Canadians rely on timely information to stay safe in volatile and potentially dangerous weather conditions. Environment and Climate Change Canada provides this information by issuing severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings with life-saving guidance, where and when it is needed most. To further improve this service, the Department is enhancing how it warns for convective weather:
- Forecasters can now target the area that they predict will experience the highest impacts and issue severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings to people only in that area. They do this by drawing a shape around the targeted areas. These shapes are called 'polygons'. These warning polygons are more targeted than the previous broader forecast zones.
- Semi-automated text generation enables forecasters to produce storm information simultaneously in both English and French, allowing convective weather warnings to be issued faster than ever before.
- Multiple warning polygons can be in effect in the same area at the same time, even overlapping one another. This gives forecasters the flexibility they need to track different threats and target safety information accordingly.
These changes apply to severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings only. Other weather alerts, like heat warnings or severe thunderstorm watches, continue to be issued according to pre-determined alert zones.
These improvements are expected to reduce the number of Alert Ready alerts mobile users receive on their phones. Most importantly, remember to always read your weather alerts and follow the safety advice they contain.
