Hi folks. Here is the skinny on CANWARN for 2021.

As you know, due to COVID, last year we were unable to offer the same CANWARN training program that we have offered for many years:  training sessions in many regions of the province covering severe weather spotting and reporting. We did experiment with webinars in a few cases, but we recognize that many of you were unable to participate in them.
 
This year, our travel restrictions will continue, at least in the short term. Meanwhile, the technology that has enabled much of the digital revolution has also changed weather spotting. Social media, in particular, has become ubiquitous and is now the primary means by which meteorologists gather storm information from the public. Furthermore, the work of meteorologists at Environment and Climate Change Canada is changing as we move increasingly towards more impact-based forecasting.
 
For these (and other) reasons, we have had to make hard choices about our limited resources. With respect to CANWARN, we have decided to prioritize our provincial, municipal, and other emergency management partners. As a result, for this year at least, we will no longer be organizing CANWARN training sessions as we did in the past. However, at the invitation of our emergency management partners, we will be pleased to provide them with training sessions tailored to their needs; in a few cases, they may be opened to members of the public. This will allow us to support our partners in their community emergency preparedness while raising the awareness of weather safety among new audiences.
 
We regret making this decision, and we know this will disappoint many of you. Some of you have been faithful weather spotters for years, even decades. We are grateful for your support over the years and we want to assure you that we will continue to monitor your severe weather and damage reports sent by e-mail or via Twitter. That will not change. To assist you in continuing to send us your weather reports, there would be a tip sheet here, for those who receive mass blasts in an email. However, since this is a blog, I will include what to report below this message.
Thank you.
 
Sincerely,
Geoff Coulson, Peter Kimbell, and Gerald Cheng
Ontario Warning Preparedness Meteorologists
 
March 22, 2021
 
PS: In case you are not aware, Environment and Climate Change Canada has a weather app (WeatherCAN), released in early 2019, available for both Apple and Android devices. This app represents the most direct way to receive our severe weather alerts. The app can be found in the App Store or Google Play.

SPOTTER REPORTING TIPS
How to Report
Amateur radio network (if applicable) – Amateur Radio Condition
Condition Codes: Code Green – Severe Thunderstorm Watch
Code Yellow – Severe Thunderstorm Warning or Tornado Watch
Code Red – Tornado Warning
in Ontario by email at storm.ontario@ec.gc.ca
Twitter with hashtag #onstorm
If you are CANWARN trained you should give the following information to the weather office in order to help them ground truth: Your name, CANWARN ID, contact number, – Where – you are located and the approximate location of what you are reporting, – Describe what you are witnessing/what you witnessed, the time of occurrence of the event and duration, its movement (where the phenomenon came from and where it is going).
In the spring/summer severe weather season, please report the following:
Hail (use coins to describe its size…dime, nickel, quarter, loonie for larger hail…golf ball etc.), Heavy rain that has resulted in local flooding, Damaging winds (damage from tree branches down to more significant tree or structural damage), Large scale rotation in a thunderstorm such as: Wall Cloud – Funnel Cloud, Waterspout and Tornado, Dense fog – visibility less than 1 km
Note: if you are unsure of the rotation or presence of a wall cloud or funnel cloud…watch the area for a few minutes if it is safe to do so to verify the situation.
For the fall/winter, please report the following: Dense fog (visibility less than 1 km), Any occurrence of freezing rain or freezing drizzle, Heavily accumulating snow (2 or more cm/hr), Whiteout conditions in snow/blowing snow (visibility near zero), Rapid freezing of water on road surfaces.