Weather Archives - CMOS BULLETIN SCMO

Visibility Forecast in Wildfire Smoke: An August 2018 Case Study

Written on April 27, 2020.

– By Yimei Li, Canadian Meteorological Aviation Centre, Environment and Climate Change Canada –

In recent years, wildfire smoke has become an increasingly alarming natural disaster in Western Canada. In 2017 and 2018, the British Columbia provincial government declared a state of emergency for two consecutive summers in response to the wildfire situation (1). These were the third and fourth declarations in history and the previous ones were in 1996 and 2003.

Blue Sky Blues or the Three Degrees of Aircraft Pollution

Written on April 10, 2020.

– By Phil Chadwick –

The title of this 2012 painting below, numbered 1260 in my artistic journey, is “Three Degrees”. That title might sound cryptic. Let me explain.

All air traffic was grounded over North America for three or four days after the terror attacks of 9/11 on September 11th, 2001. A couple of curious meteorologists investigated the impact of grounding those aircraft. They discovered that the skies were much clearer and that temperatures responded correspondingly.

Seasonal Outlook for the spring 2020 (MAM) based on the official CanSIPS forecast issued on the 28th Feb. 2020

Written on March 22, 2020.

– By M. Markovic, B. Merryfield, M. Alarie, Environment and Climate Change Canada –

Seasonal Outlook for Spring 2020 (March, April, May) in Canada is for elevated temperatures in eastern Canada and below normal temperatures in the west, with equal chances for precipitation for most of the country.

Call for Nominations for the Patterson Medal Award for Distinguished Service to Meteorology in Canada

Written on February 27, 2020.

– Communication from Diane Campbell, Chairperson, Patterson Medal Committee, Meteorological Service of Canada –

The Patterson Medal Award is given for distinguished service to meteorology in Canada. The medal was established in 1946 in honour of Dr. John Patterson, Controller of the Meteorological Service of Canada from 1929 to 1946. The Patterson Medal Award Committee is seeking nominations for the 2019 recipient of this award.

Observing Snow from the Sky: Breakthroughs in mapping tundra snow with drones

Written on February 26, 2020.

– By Branden Walker and Philip Marsh, Cold Regions Research Centre, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario –

Snow is not evenly distributed across Arctic tundra landscapes. Strong winter winds and low-lying vegetation allow snow to easily be eroded, transported and deposited across the open landscape resulting in a heterogenous distribution of snow depth, snow density, and snow water equivalent (SWE). Understanding the distribution of snow in these environments is of upmost importance

Toward Quantifying Area-fugitive Greenhouse Gas
(GHG) Emissions from Open-pit Mines

Written on February 12, 2020.

– By Amir Nazem, Md. Rafsan Nahian, Ryan Byerlay, Manoj K. Nambiar, and Amir A. Aliabadi-

Conventional techniques to quantify area-fugitive Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from an open-pit mine have serious drawbacks. The bottom-up approach is based on inventory estimates, in which the emissions from different stationary sources across a mining facility are combined. This approach does not include the atmospheric measurements of GHGs or meteorology and relies on assumptions of the strength of each GHG source within a facility that may not be up-to-date.

In My Opinion: On greed, power and making the weather

Written on January 30, 2020.

– By Phil Chadwick, Meteorologist and Eco-Artist –

I figure if one is going to have an opinion about climate change, it had better be an informed opinion. I thought I was well informed but there is always something to learn too. The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery was published in 2005 just after Hurricane Katrina. Fifteen years later not much has changed – the politicians continue to dither.

Searching towards creating a sustainable integrated mesonet for the Canadian Prairie Provinces

Written on January 13, 2020.

– By Jeannine-Marie St-Jacques¹, Aston Chipanshi², Trevor Hadwen², Allan Friesen¹, and David Sauchyn³ –

Due to the continental nature of the Canadian Prairie Provinces, their weather and climate are characterized by extremes. With this reality, the Prairie Provinces should benefit from high resolution weather monitoring from an integrated weather mesonet. A mesonet consists of any number of automated weather stations with an average spacing of 1 to 50 kilometers. This station spacing is much denser

Canada’s Top Ten Weather Stories of 2019

Written on January 2, 2020.

– By David Phillips, Environment and Climate Change Canada (article source: https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/top-ten-weather-stories/2019.html) –

Canadians are experiencing more and more extreme weather, from intense and lengthy heat waves, to suffocating smoke and haze from wildfires, to extreme flooding. Canadian scientists have made a clear link between climate change and extreme weather events. They tell us that while such events can and do occur naturally, much of what we are seeing is driven by human-induced climate change.