TORONTO, Ont. -- January 20, 2012 -- Today, the Honourable Peter Kent, Minister of the Environment, announced that the Harper Government is investing $78.7 million over the next five years to strengthen weather monitoring infrastructure, ensuring Canadians continued access to world-class weather, water and climate monitoring data.
"Canadians understand the impact that weather, particularly severe weather, has on all of us," said Minister Kent. "This investment in Environment Canada's weather monitoring infrastructure will result in improved weather forecasts and warnings to better protect Canadians."
The infrastructure upgrades will strengthen the Department's core weather monitoring networks including the weather radar network, which is the backbone of Canada's severe weather warnings service. The upgrades will also modernize the monitoring infrastructure and help Environment Canada's weather service keep pace with the rapid evolution of new science and technologies.
Link: http://www.ec.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En ... FAEB4C0958
Link on Canada's Weather Monitoring Infrastructure: http://www.ec.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En ... 9855FCEA65
This is the best news of the year so far! This was badly needed as our radar network isn't up to par in my eyes and many meteorologists I've talked to agree. IMO some of EC's warnings for severe weather are really not what I'd expect and before 2010 there were more than a few times when I did a face-palm at some of the "incidents". Not to get political but now I'm even more elated about our current regime
.The main four areas where the fund will head towards is: Canadian Weather Radar Network ($45.2M), Canadian Weather and Climate Observing Networks ($18.8M), Canadian Aerological Network ($4.2M) and the Canadian Lightning Detection Network ($10.5M).