CANWARN is a volunteer organization of ham radio operators who report severe weather when they see it to Environment Canada. What they do is called ground-truthing. They confirm on the ground what satellites and radars see in the atmosphere. When Environment Canada's weather centres issue severe weather watches or warnings, they alert the CANWARN volunteers at the organization's regional stations in the affected areas. The volunteers contact other CANWARN members on the ham radio, tell them a watch or warning has been issued and ask them to report signs of approaching severe weather. These include lightning, hail, cumulonimbus clouds or as they are known in the trade CBs, and funnel clouds, which if they touch down are then called tornadoes.

CANWARN is organised in local networks. When CANWARN members spot severe weather, they send their reports to the CANWARN network controller who forwards them to Environment Canada's severe weather office in Toronto using either a special telephone line or the CANWARN web page. At the weather office, the severe weather meteorologist combines the data from the satellites and radar with the information from the ground to refine the forecast or prepare a severe weather watch or warning. In Ontario, CANWARN stations are equipped with computers, printers, and ham radio equipment, and are located in community centres such as airports, police stations and senior citizens complexes.

Ham or amateur radio operators have long played important roles in their communities, particularly during emergencies. These men and women run very high frequency, VHF, or ultra high frequency, UHF, radios from their homes, offices, cars or trucks and so are in a good position to help when normal lines of communication have been knocked out by a tornado, fire or explosion. 

Their roles expanded after the Edmonton tornado on July 31, 1987. The tornado which had winds of more than 400 kilometres an hour ploughed through the Alberta city in the mid afternoon killing 27 people, injuring 253 others and causing more than $250 million in damage. The report on the Edmonton tornado and the weather warning system, known informally as the Hage report, said Environment Canada should solicit the help of amateur radio operators in the severe weather watch and warning program.

Within a week of the report's publication, Environment Canada had trained more than 120 ham radio operators in the Windsor area to detect severe weather. At first CANWARN operated primarily in southwestern Ontario. Today, there are CANWARN stations in towns and cities from Windsor through to eastern Ontario and Parry Sound on Georgian Bay. There are also CANWARN stations in Northwestern Ontario, including places like Thunder Bay, Fort Frances, Dryden, and Kenora. CANWARN volunteers cover most of the areas of Ontario that are likely to have severe weather. CANWARN is active (to varying degrees) in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Environment Canada trains ham radio operators to spot and report severe weather. They learn about the structure of storms, the types of clouds to watch for and what the department's severe weather watches and warnings mean. All CANWARN volunteers are encouraged to sign up for the refresher courses which the department offers each year. Any licenced ham radio operator may become a CANWARN volunteer. Men and women who are studying for their licences or are listeners of short wave radios may join CANWARN as associate volunteers.

A message from Geoff Coulson (Environment Canada)

Folks…it's been a busy time for me from late 2007 until the present. Workload kept me from sending out a summary of the 2007 Summer Severe Weather Season and a thank you for all of the help CANWARN storm spotters provided last season. Hard to look out the window and see all of the snow on the ground and think that we could be less than a month away from severe thunderstorms rumbling through Southern Ontario. Spring may take awhile to fully arrive this year but arrive it will and with it will come powerful thunderstorms that will again generate damaging winds, large hail, torrential rains and tornadoes.

CANWARN 20th Presentation

However, before we look ahead to this Spring's training schedule, I think it is important to reflect on last season which was CANWARN's 20th anniversary here in Ontario. The attached image shows the 4 founding fathers of the CANWARN program (from left to right...Bill Leal, Randy Mawson, Paul Robertson and Jerry Beneteau) who got together and formed the first CANWARN group in the Windsor area in 1987. The image shows the 4 holding the Environment Canada Certificates of Appreciation that I was happy to present to them during the CANWARN training last spring in Leamington.

The 2007 season itself was an interesting one with 9 confirmed or probable tornadoes just two fewer than the long term average of 11 in Ontario. Of note was that 5 of these tornadoes were associated with a massive supercell thunderstorm that moved through portions of Grey, Bruce, Huron, Perth and Waterloo-Wellington counties on July 8th, 2007. In addition to spawning a number of tornadoes, large hail was reported with this event as well. Fortunately, no major structural damage was done from this impressive storm. Also interesting was that all of the tornadoes last year were ranked at the lowest end of the Fujita damage scale…as either an F0 (winds up to 115 km/h) or F1 (winds between 120 and 170 km/h). We continue to be long overdue for an F3 or larger tornado with the last F3 being confirmed in the Violet Hill area in April of 1996.

   2007 also reminded us than anywhere in the Province can experience severe thunderstorms and tornadoes with a damaging wind event occurring in Northwestern Ontario in the Ignace area on the morning of June 26th, a confirmed F1 tornado occurring later that same day about 60 km to the west of Thunder Bay and a damaging wind event taking place on August 1st at the Kashechewan First Nation near James Bay.

CANWARN Training Sessions 2008

And now to this Spring's training schedule…the following represents the dates/venues arranged so far in Southern Ontario…there is still the possibility of a date/venue in Eastern Ontario and the training schedule for Northwestern Ontario will likely be released by late March or early April with the actual training taking place in mid-May. Here is the schedule as things stand now…

Saturday, April 12th, 9 AM
Hamilton - Nash Auditorium, Wilcox Building, Chedoke Hospital, Sanatorium Road, Hamilton 

Monday, April 14th 7 PM
Sarnia - Lower Auditorium, Clearwater Arena (Sarnia Township Community Centre) 1400 Wellington St., Sarnia

Tuesday, April 15th 7 PM (Updated April 2 2008)
Chatham-Kent - 425 McNaughton Ave. West, Chatham - United Way Room (main entrance to the building is off of the side street, Dover Doon) 

Wednesday, April 16th 7 PM
London - Four Points Sheraton Hotel - 1150 Wellington Road, London 

Wednesday, April 16th 7 PM
Kitchener-Waterloo - Kitchener-Waterloo - Carl A. Pollock Hall Rm. 1346, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. West. 

Saturday, April 26th 9:30 AM
Greater Sudbury - Lionel E. Lalonde Centre, 239 Rue Principale, Azilda, Ontario (Azilda is approx. 15 km northwest of Sudbury on Highway 35) 

Sunday, April 27th 9:00 AM
Orillia - Ontario Provincial Police Headquarters Auditorium - 777 Memorial Avenue, Orillia

Saturday, May 3rd - 9:00 AM
Toronto - Environment Canada Headquarters Auditorium - 4905 Dufferin St., Toronto 

Tuesday, May 6th - 7 PM (Updated April 17 2008)
Renfrew - Best Western Renfrew Inn and Conference Centre, 760 Gibbons Road 

Tuesday, May 13th - 7:30 PM (Updated April 17 2008)
Thunder Bay - Room 191, McIntyre Building at Confederation College located at the intersection of Williams St. and Edward St. 

Wednesday, May 14th - 7:30 PM Central Daylight Time (Updated April 17 2008)
Dryden - Dryden Flying Club, Olson's Landing, Wabigoon Lake just to the west and south of the Domtar mill

Thursday, May 15th - 7:00 PM Central Daylight Time  (Updated April 17 2008)
Kenora - Longbow Lake Firehall Training Room, just east of Kenora

Regards, 
Geoff Coulson 
Warning Preparedness Meteorologist 
Environment Canada