Weather experts concerned about public safety as Environment Canada disbands radar research team

Prairie force chaser and wicked endure medical specialist william le baron jenny Hagan relies on national weather data while out on the field.

She braves tornadoes and blizzards to capture storm images and inform the public about weather patterns.

She says cuts to radar research by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) will make that job more difficult.

Its radar research team has recently been disbanded and radar technology won’t be further developed. 

Radars provide real-time data about immediate conditions, which help ECCC issue timely warnings to the public. 

“Those radar capabilities can let us know everything from the wind speeds being carried in those storms to the possible hail sizes that sit in those storms,” Hagan said. 

“It kind of allows us to know how close we can get to this storm to get the information to get out to the public, or how far we need to stay away because of some highly dangerous conditions in that storm.”

Every radar in Canada, including those Hagan uses, feeds off of ECCC’s radar system.

Hagan said she’d like to see improvements to the system, instead of cuts to its research team.

“It really kind of holds us back a lot on the information that we can gather when we’re out in the field, in order to keep not just ourselves safe, but the general public,” she said.

It confirmed in a statement that changes to radar research have been made, but said it will continue to provide expertise in maintaining Canada’s radar network.

Experts say Canada’s radars were already 15 years behind the capabilities of those in the U.S.

Lee Stanley, a farmer near the U.S. Border in Carievale, Sask., said he relies on the U.S. Radars instead of Canada’s.

“I can kind of rely on some American apps,” Stanley said. “But it would be nice to see the Canadian government and the Saskatchewan government invest a little bit more in forecasting.” 

Farmers' livelihoods depend on the forecast. 

A recent windstorm left Stanley with costly property damage, but he commended ECCC for issuing warnings days before it happened. 

“It's good to know what's coming, but there's really very little you can do if you're going to get hit with 120-kilometer winds,” Stanley said.

“Other than make sure anything that can be tied down is tied down or placed inside a building somewhere, and hope the building doesn't blow away.”

The radar cuts aren’t the only big change.

Canada will also soon be the first country to launch a hybrid AI weather model forecasting system.

ECCC is turning to AI to make its long-term forecasts more accurate, beginning in the last week of May.

The system will combine its traditional physics-based knowledge with AI to be able to predict weather systems further into the future. It promises the new system will make its six- to 10-day forecast as accurate as its five-day forecast. 

“The quality is better, but the kind of output is similar,” said Jean-Francois Caron, a research scientist with ECCC who helped develop the models.

“Humans will still be interpreting the same kind of data set, just the data set will be more accurate than it was before.”

ECCC trained the AI system by feeding it past weather data, which it can use to analyze the current atmosphere conditions.

“We learn how the atmosphere works and when we give it the weather of the day, it can make a forecast based on that, just like [how] the physics-based model would do a forecast,” Caron said.

The system is expected to be better at detecting large-scale storms that impact a widespread region days in advance, with accuracy expanding up to 10 days ahead of a storm touching down. It's also expected to be better at detecting blizzards, thunderstorms and heat waves days before they arrive.

Research and development for the hybrid system began two years ago. Caron said the organization was able to “make quite a significant improvement in a short amount of time.”

He said the launch of this hybrid system will add jobs, as more eyes on the system are needed to ensure its accuracy. 

“It is going to improve the timeliness and accuracy of forecasts,” said David Sills, the director of the Northern Tornadoes Project at McMaster University. 

“It'll be quicker at predicting when the conditions will come together for tornadic storms.”

However, Sills said the move is confusing and that developing current radars is just as important as improving future forecasts. 

“On the one hand, they’re adding capacity to pursue severe weather; on the other hand, they’re taking away,” he said. “It’s hard to see what the logic is there. ”

Sills said the AI hybrid model won’t replace the radar when it comes to the immediate on-the-ground risk.

Lack of radar in northern Manitoba hampers response to extreme weather

“We have actually done studies where we looked at what was the radar imagery that was in front of the forecaster when [a] tornado was missed,” Sills said. 

“And a lot of times it’s because the quality of the radar images is so poor that it’s hard to tell that there’s potential for a tornado there.”

ECCC researchers are optimistic that AI technology will get better and someday improve forecasting in every timeframe.

“We hope that with AI, we can improve all ranges of forecast,” Caron said. “Not only the medium and long ranges but the short ranges.”

Sills said improved detection of hail, tornadoes and flash floods is needed to protect public safety, and that acting now is essential.

“Radar engineers and scientists don't grow on trees,” he said. “They are very hard to come by, especially the ones that have a lot of experience in Canada and with the Canadian system.

“Once that expertise is gone, it's pretty much gone for good; you have to start from scratch if you want to build that team again.”

Sills started a letter-writing campaign two weeks ago, urging people to ask elected officials to reverse the cuts.

In the first 48 hours, 8,000 letters were sent; the total is now close to 10,000.

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