CANWARN volunteer storm spotters-April 2010
The return of warm and humid weather in April will herald the start of the spring/summer severe weather season in Ontario. This severe weather will take the form of powerful thunderstorms capable of producing damaging winds, flooding rains, large hail and tornadoes. The 2009 season had a number of significant events. On July 9th three American tourists lost their lives in a fishing camp in Northwestern Ontario north of Dryden when a Fujita Scale 2 tornado moved through the camp. On August 20th, 18 tornadoes were spawned from a series of supercell thunderstorms that moved over southcentral and eastern Ontario. These 18 tornadoes represented a new Canadian record for most tornadoes in one day. Yet another milestone will be reached this spring, May 31st, 2010 will be the 25th anniversary of the Barrie and Grand Valley tornadoes…the last confirmed Fujita Scale 4 tornadoes to occur in Ontario…that, between them, took 11 lives.
CANWARN volunteer storm spotters continue to play an integral role in Environment Canada's severe weather watch/warning program. I would encourage you to come out to a training session near you especially if you haven't been to one in a few years. By now, most of you have received your CANWARN ID card…many were given out during last year's training then a number of others were mailed out. There will be a supply of cards at each training session for those of you who don't have a card yet. In order to keep our database up-to-date, I would ask you to send in any changes to your contact information (i.e. new email address, mailing address, phone number etc..) to the
canwarn.ontarioregion@ec.gc.ca account. Also, I would appreciate getting emails to the canwarn.ontarioregion@ec.gc.ca account indicating which CANWARN training session you intend to participate in…this will help us get a sense of numbers ahead of time. During the sessions this year we will also be promoting two email addresses that can be used to report severe weather…they are storm.ontario@ec.gc.ca and tempete.ontario@ec.gc.ca, these accounts are monitored 24/7 by weather centre staff and represent yet another way you can provide information concerning breaking weather.On behalf of my colleagues at the Ontario Storm Prediction Centre, I would like to thank all of you for being a part of this very important program. Your timely reports of severe weather are greatly appreciated and help in increasing the safety and security of the people of Ontario. I look forward to seeing some of you at the training sessions this year. So without further ado…here are the list of this year's sessions as things stand.
Windsor - Monday, April 12th 7 PM - Caboto Club 2175 Parent Avenue
London - Tuesday, April 13th 7 PM - Four Points Sheraton Hotel 1150 Wellington Road
Hamilton - Saturday, April 17th 9 AM - Nash Auditorium, Wilcox Building, Chedoke Hospital, Sanitorium Road
Sarnia - Tuesday, April 20th 7 PM - Kinsmen Centre (Oakroom Room) 656 Lakeshore Road
Peterborough - Tuesday, April 20th 7 PM - Canoe Museum 910 Monaghan Rd
Kitchener-Waterloo- Wednesday April 21st 7 PM –
Bingemans Conference Centre - 425 Bingemans Centre Drive
Orillia - Saturday, April 24th 9 AM - Highwayman Inn - 201 Woodside Drive
Toronto - Saturday, May 1st 9 AM - Environment Canada Headquarters
4905 Dufferin St (Dufferin south of Steeles Avenue)
Cornwall - Saturday, May 1st 9 AM - Cornwall Legion 415 Second St. W.
Ottawa - Saturday, May 8th 9 AM - Kanata Legion 70 Hines Road
Sudbury - Saturday, May 15th 9:30 AM - Lionel E. Lalonde Centre 239 Montee Principale, Azilda
Sault Ste Marie - Sunday, May 16th 7 PM - Waterfront Inn - 208 St. Mary's Drive
Timmins - Monday, May 17th 7 PM - Days Inn - 14 Mountjoy St. South
North Bay - Wednesday, May 19th 7 PM - Ontario Provincial Police Communication Centre - 877 Gormanville Road
Northwestern Ontario - week of June 7th - exact dates/locations to be determined in next 2 weeks
Geoff Coulson
Warning Preparedness, Ontario Region, Environment Canada |