March 23, 2006 - Today marks
the United Nation’s World Meteorological Day, which
commemorates the coming into force of the Convention
on the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in
1950. This year’s theme is “Preventing and Mitigating
Natural Disasters,” and Environment Canada is taking
the opportunity to raise awareness about preparing
for severe weather.
World Meteorological Day is an opportunity to recognize
the valuable public weather service that Environment
Canada provides to Canadians 24 hours a day, every
day of the year.
“At Environment Canada, we’re particularly concerned
with severe weather conditions, and our priority
is, and will always be, to enable Canadians to take
action to protect their environment, their safety
and security,” said the Honourable Rona Ambrose,
Minister of the Environment. “I encourage Canadians
to continue using the vast array of tools we offer
to help prepare against the potentially devastating
effects of severe weather.”
Each year, Environment Canada’s Meteorological Services
produces over 500,000 public weather forecasts,
400,000 aviation forecasts, 200,000 marine weather
forecasts and issues approximately 14,000 severe
weather warnings and 3,500 ice hazard warnings.
Canada is not immune from the devastating effects
of severe weather conditions. Canadians need to
be aware of the risk of severe weather and take
appropriate action. To ensure this is possible,
Environment Canada provides media and public weather
warnings, marine weather warnings and a variety
of other weather-related information through the
following tools:
• Internet: The weather office web site http://www.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca
is the Government of Canada's most frequently used
Internet sites with over seven billion hits per
year.
• Telephone: Environment Canada's free automated
telephone answering devices (ATADs), provide recordings
of the latest weather forecasts as well as weather
watches and warnings. Consult the blue pages of
your telephone directory to know the number in your
region. There is also a 1-900 user-pay service that
enables callers to speak directly to a meteorologist
(1-900-565-5555).
• Weatheradio: Bilingual weather information is
continually broadcast over Weatheradio VHF frequencies.
Users can receive audio signal and text weather
warning messages.
For more information about the World Meteorological
Organization, please visit the following web site:
www.wmo.ch.
