Weather Radio Listeners Newsletter for February 1st 2024
Hello and welcome to issue number 1 of the newsletter for 2024. Unfortunately, there has been no new changes to either NWR or WXR Canada since any maintenance had been done on the various towers throughout the Canadian network. Hopefully we get the short term forecasts back on the broadcast soon and maybe, any patches to WXRs in Ontario will spread to the rest of Canada, such as any stuttering issues with the French translation. I would like it if it was possible to put the newer versions of Tom, Nicolas, Ava and Chantal on the broadcast, as they appear on Apple devices and VoiceOver. Most people may not like them, but I am used to it and hearing both versions on separate devices seems odd to me now. I listen for vocal pitch and the tone of voice and the newer versions are a lot more peppy, much like Siri had become in 2017. I strongly believe that people like myself who use VoiceOver on a current iPhone should at least show others who may not understand so they will know that what they hear on Weatheradio Canada is much the same, except that it is a different version of the voice on the broadcast, unless you are still on iOS 15.7 and its latest update. If you live in the US, it is a different story and I do not think you will be getting Tom and Donna back any time soon. Anyone who is way behind will get the OG i-Notify voices and all of them before iOS 16, instead of the versions we hear on iOS 16 and 17 so far. If it were possible to get the OG voices back, I would love it and hopefully Apple allows for this in iOS 18, whether we get side loading like they will have in the EU, dew to government regulations or not. The same regulations are why we have USB-C on the current iPhones, which I was very resistant to at first. However, I don’t mind it now. Anyway, I digress.
I still have my wish list for the switch of voices, with the females doing the station ID, time announcements and the males doing weather alert messages. Besides, it makes sense because Tom and Nicolas are speaking the forecast areas on the broadcast anyway, so they should be telling us where the latest weather advisory, watch or warning is in the listening area. Right? If we had the females doing the station ID and time announcements, it would give anyone who is listening something to look forward to, especially if they are lying in bed with their WX radio on in the background and they are too lazy to get up and check their phone, or a clock in the room for the current time. Besides, it would be a throwback to the days before 2021, where the human voices did the station ID messages and the females would be performing the same function as the humans were with AVIPADs. Remember, we heard the humans doing station ID, watchdog and RWT and RMT messages so, why not make that switch with the males giving us forecasts, weather conditions and weather alerts? Why not have the females speak the station ID (including time announcements), RWT and RMT, watchdog and general announcements? I hope that those in management can see where I am going with this, as the idea is to make the broadcast more engaging and to give us something to look forward to. Besides, the broadcast is rather boring with the same voices speaking all of the time, in either language and having Tom and Nicolas warning us of severe weather makes sense. Am I right?
It is February and one more month of winter and I am looking forward to the end of the snow and cold. Altho, I hear that spring will be cooler in Ontario this year, but it can’t be as bad as 2018. Can it? Apparently, we could have a winter storm occurring during the Easter holiday weekend, or around Good Friday which falls on March 29th this year. So, I am not all that concerned, unless we get an April freeze like in 2003. I certainly hope we don’t get that again, or an ice storm like in 2018, but April is said to be cooler and rainier this year and the warm stuff will take longer to get here, similarly to 2018 and 2008, among other years which have had cooler summers. Anyway, here is the rest of the newsletter and right off the bat, I have something I hadn’t included in a long time.
For the first time in quite a while, I have an unboxing video for a new WX radio. From what I hear, it isn’t exactly blind friendly because it is touchscreen, although it does set the clock to the correct time automatically as this video informs us. Anyway, check this out and if you’d like it, go ahead and pick it up somewhere and if you want to write a review on it, by all means do so and I will be more than happy to put it in the next issue in May. https://youtu.be/bYvy3WfH90A?si=hxe5TvWkTgiesrmD
THE WATCHDOG REPORT
If you hear anything that doesn’t sound right on your local Weather Radio transmitter, there are various ways to report a problem that depend on where you live. If you live in The United States, you can call 1-888-697-7263. You can email NOAA at nwroutage@noaa.gov, or on the web at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr. If you live in Canada, you can call 1-877-789-7733. You can email the National Weatheradio Canada Team at ec.wxradio.ec@canada.ca. Also, you can report it on the NOAA Weather Radio Weatheradio Canada Facebook Group. https://m.facebook.com/groups/weatheradio/
You can also email me directly at wxrnewsletter@gmail.com and it will be passed on for you. Please cc me at this email address if you choose to fire off an email to either netowrk. You can also report problems on X (formerly known as Twitter) @WxrNewsletter and by all means, follow me at this account too.
Note from the author:
I will mainly include items with a definitive time on their start to finish and ones with unknown starts or endings, I will of course include as well, but with a mention of them being unknown.
From Ethan Bender on January 12th:
Kitchener XMJ330 just sent out a Network Notification Message @ 23:16 on 1/12/24. By 9:00 AM it seemed to have been brought back and everything is hunky-dory again. On Monday, January 15, the author got the report from Weatheradio Canada.
Thank you for reporting the problem with Kitchener Weatheradio. There was a network outage affecting the site. This wasn’t a Weatheradio network problem, it must have been a wider issue with the Bell network in that area from what we can see in our logs. The system recovers on its own once the connectivity was restored and, the site did not stop broadcasting during this outage (but some messages may have been delayed as specified in the notification). Note this is schedule for maintenance late February.
Regards,
Jean-Francois Trudeau
THE CANWARN/SKYWARN REPORT
CANWARN (CANadian Weather Amateur Radio Network) is a volunteer organization of amateur radio operators who report severe weather and damage reports to Environment Canada when they see it. Weather reports from amateur radio operators help confirm on the ground what satellites and radars see in the atmosphere. The information gathered from CANWARN is also used to update and fine tune weather warnings, fill in gaps in current observing networks and is also valuable in forensic storm analysis. When Environment Canada issues severe weather watches or warnings, they may alert the CANWARN volunteer Net Controllers in the affected areas. The volunteer Net Controllers contact other CANWARN members on the amateur radio, tell them a watch or warning has been issued and ask them to report signs of approaching severe weather. In the US SKYWARN is the American counterpart to CANWARN in Canada and the purpose for it is exactly the same.
For this section of the newsletter, the idea is to explore how different CANWARN and SKYWARN groups operate in their local region, from time to time. There may be some SKYWARN information from meteorologists in this issue and there will be some tips on how to report severe weather for both CANWARN and SKYWARN.
We may not agree with everything that is written here, but it is important to hear from others to see how different groups operate throughout North America.
I am still looking for any information, on CANWARN and or, SKYWARN training schedules, outside of Ontario. Unfortunately, I have not received any emails from meteorologists or my fellow spotters, as to when sessions will be conducted. Of course, I will post them as a standalone blog post outside the newsletter timeline and when ever a new schedule update is released. I have given my email address many times throughout the newsletter and any help on that is certainly welcome. Many thanks in advance.
As usual for the past few years, here is the message from myself and Geoff Coulson. Geoff is a warning preparedness meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada, based out of Toronto and who also managed the CANWARN storm spotter program in the province of Ontario. He has since retired but, had returned on a part-time basis to help out Gerald Cheng at sessions (here and there) during the 2019 training session season. Also, to put together the online training and most likely, this and the last 3 years sessions probably had and will have some material relating to that. Since Geoff has retired and is concentrating more on the online end, I figured I would do the reminder in the February issues of the newsletter, from 2020 onward. I have inserted my own words into the message, to make it more applicable to all of Canada and not just Ontario.
As we all know, CANWARN members are volunteers from all walks of life and Amateur radio operators comprise the core of the CANWARN program with other volunteers coming from all levels of government, emergency managers/responders and those with a passion for the weather. This of course, includes everyone who administrates various groups on Facebook which relate in one way or another, to weather.
CANWARN volunteers watch the skies year-round for telltale signs of severe storms and relay significant information, in real-time, to the Storm Prediction Centres located across Canada. In the winter-time this can include reports of significant snowfall amounts, poor visibilities in fog or blowing snow and occurrences of freezing rain. In the spring and summer months, reports can be sent in on the appearance of funnel clouds or tornadoes or the occurrence of large hail, damaging winds or flooding rains. There are now thousands of CANWARN volunteers across Canada and many of these volunteers have attended a training session in the last few years.
Until 2020, CANWARN training sessions in Ontario have been held across the province in the April to June timeframe. Training sessions were normally held during evenings and on weekends with the sessions lasting between 2 and 2.5 hours. There was no cost to attend a training session. The spring training schedule was normally released in either late March or, early April. In 2019, there was a drastic drop in sessions being done, dew to resource pressures and because of the pandemic, things have been moved to Zoom.
As for the rest of Canada, sessions may have also been held around the same time, altho some sessions had been known to be held in March. For example: sessions in parts of Manitoba had happened in early March, according to what I’ve been told from reliable sources. Some sessions were also being held as late as early July.
The explosion of the use of social media, like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to report severe weather in recent years, have made some question the continuing importance of CANWARN. While the Weather Centre monitors social media closely, they are often required to do some checking before using social media reports. However, reports from identified CANWARN members are given more weight immediately. The forecasters realize that these reports are coming from people who understand the types of weather they want to hear about and they know we have received training in what to spot and report.
Many of us reading this newsletter that live in Canada may already be a CANWARN member and, if so, thank you for your participation, along with myself and others. For those of you who aren’t a member but are interested in learning more about the program or who would like to be placed on the training notification distribution list, feel free to contact those of us who administrate the weather related FB groups, (if you are on Facebook). We would be happy to direct you to information about CANWARN and of course, the scheduled training sessions on Zoom will appear here as standalone posts, outside the newsletter timeline.
For the past 3 years, training sessions had been held over Zoom and it’s looking more likely that CANWARN will be online only and we will have no more in person sessions. Since CANWARN sessions have been on Zoom, I will refuse to attend training sessions until further notice. I miss attending sessions, but I only have the Zoom app which allows for 40 minutes per meeting free and I’m not going to abuse it, even for something like CANWARN. CANWARN sessions are more than an hour long and because it is on Zoom, there is the possibility of audio cutting out or life interfering with the speaker on either end of the call. So, I will not be there, when CANWARN sessions are being held online for those reasons alone. Zoom is a great thing, but it is not perfect and you don’t have the same vibe as you would get when attending a training session in person, where you can shake hands with people and talk to them, face to face and not between living quarters on a phone or a computer.
To further make my point, I had done a post last May, including 2 scheduled CANWARN workshops/ events and they were held on Zoom. They were held in May and June and as you can probably guess, I did not attend either of the sessions, for the same reasons I had mentioned above and one more. It seems that amateur radio has taken the lead as far as CANWARN and wasn’t this started by Environment Canada, by a meteorologist who just happened to be a licensed ham? The answer of courses yes and Randy Mawson has since retired and I have no idea, if he had attended any of the online sessions. I had said that I wouldn’t and I will not because of what I had said back in May.
“The fact that these are online only events takes away the social aspect of going to CANWARN training sessions and despite that I like to be alone most of the time, I enjoy getting together with these events (live in person) and we can hear each other’s laughter and we get to talk to each other, with us physically in the same room. On zoom, we can easily be distracted by various things going on at home with life interfering with us and yes, you can mute audio, but it doesn’t take away the fact that this is not exactly an efficient way of getting together. It’s the best we’ve got right now, but I personally do not like it and I have heard good sound quality on Zoom at times (with radio interviews I’ve heard), but that does not take away my own personal feelings about the platform and it’s deficiencies. These events are normally an hour and a half long, which (as I have said would require me to stay on the app for more than 40 minutes and this would be after the free time. I don’t know if it will cost money, or if I will be cut off as I have not tested that as yet and I do not wish to at this time anyway.”
“With Geoff Coulson as a special guest it is also telling, that the amateur radio community has taken more of a leading roll in the sessions and when they happen, as apposed to Environment Canada and the in person training sessions. I am a ham and I have been since September 2009, but I am beginning to feel something I had been thinking for a long time. Some amateur radio operators who are CANWARN trained, may have some resentment towards those who had attended training sessions and who are not hams. That is how I had started in 2008, but I had been planning to get my license and of course, my callsign which is VA3WXA, which is not a coincidence. It was chosen because of my love for Weather and I was lucky to get it on the first try however, my thinking is that the sessions are as they are and lead by RAC, in order to maybe encourage new blood to come into the hobby. Not everyone wants to become like me and many others like me, because of their own reasons. Some people think of ham radio as an old-boies club, which I understand as some of us join at an advanced age and those who have been in the hobby a long time, may feel some resentment about changes in rules for newer hams, such as the requirement to learn Morse code being dropped, in order to get their ticket. Some don’t like that we have our licenses for life and do not have to renew it, unlike they do in the states and frankly, I get that too. However, to renew it it is time consuming and not everybody has the time to do that. I can think of at least one prominent television writer, who is a ham in the US and has not renewed his license since 1998 and, this was a writer and Show Runner for The Simpsons for Season’s 5 and 6. If you are a Simpsons fan, you know who I’m talking about and the call was WA3QIZ, which was used in a Season 17 episode and is now used by someone else.”
So, as a matter of principal I will stay away from the online CANWARN events as if they are dangerous to my health for all of the reasons I had mentioned here. It is sad that I have to do this, but going along to get along will not change things and I believe that the online sessions should be a part of the training session schedule and not the only option. Not everyone will have the time to go to an in person session, or feel they can go to the venue physically, so that is where the online sessions could come in handy for those who prefer to stay home and either join for the first time, or get the refresher.
On the other hand, not everybody wants to be online all the time and would prefer learning face-to-face, in the company of other people and for me, I prefer to go to the sessions for all of the reasons I have mentioned. Besides, as humans we are wired for physical contact and we can’t let a virus scare us away from each other for the rest of our lives. That is another reason why the online sessions have become more prominent, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and we have all been scared away from each other and conditioned, to stay home and do more things online. We can’t live like that all the time, unless you’re a recluse and even at that, we all need to buy food and other essentials to keep us going so, why not do both online and in person sessions either at the same time (in some cases), or as separate sessions in others? Having either or leaves people out and there has to be a medium between the two.
Also, can we please go back to EccC managing CANWARN, instead of Radio Amateurs of Canada taking a lead roll? We know why that has happened, because of the possibility of getting new blood hooked up with call signs, taking the examinations and on the air. CANWARN was started by a bunch of hams and one of them happened to be a meteorologist for Environment Canada and EccC should be in the drivers seat and not the other way around. Could this be about creating a narrative, that amateur radio is the main reason for CANWARN and not Environment Canada? This could lead to EccC being phased out entirely, or being kept as a guest for the training sessions. I don’t think that’s right and it should be a collaboration between RAC and EccC, but it isn’t.
For those who haven’t been to a CANWARN training session, or even a SKYWARN session, this is basically what it sounds like. Having gone to multiple sessions I can tell you that this is true, no matter who is speaking. In this case, it is Geoff Coulson and for those who have been to his sessions, you know that he liked to include humour, to engage us in why we are there and at the same time, not understate the importance and the seriousness of what we are doing, which is to help save lives. https://youtu.be/RswzEMxIXh8
As for SKYWARN training schedules, you can go to either of the following sites:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/skywarn/
http://skywarn.org/
https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_course.php?id#
There are many links for you to look at on these sites.
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. For
SKYWARN spotters, you should report: Tornadoes or funnel clouds (be very wary of look-alikes; watch for rotation) waterspouts, Wall clouds, especially if they are rotating
Hail (Be specific with regard to size; however, YOU SHOULD NOT report MARBLE size)
Winds (40 mph or greater; specify whether they are estimated or recorded), large branches downed (specify the diameter of the branch), Trees/power lines downed, Structural damage to buildings such as roof, windows, etc.
Rainfall (1 inch or greater in an hour) (NOT a 1″/hr. rate for 10 minutes), 2 inches or greater storm total, Flooding — Streams/Rivers — also, when nearing bankful — Coastal — Street (Road Closures/Washouts, Cars Stuck due to flood waters. Minimum of 6″ of water covering an entire roadway or lane of a major route/highway).
For Winter Weather you should report: Precipitation type change (rain to sleet/freezing rain/snow, when the change has “taken hold”), Thunder when it is accompanied by snow, 1/4″ radial ice accretion (from twig outward; not circumference), New Snowfall from the First 2 inches; every 2-3 inches thereafter, 1 inch per hour or greater. If it is less than 2 inches total, give the final total only Give final total: no partial reports please) Report any snow/sleet/freezing rain if not in NWS forecast.
Please consult your local Amateur Radio club or CANWARN or SKYWARN group for their: email address, Twitter account or Facebook pages.
To end off this post, I am going to talk about something which hasn’t been on Weatheradio Canada for years. Just for a change of pace, here is something I had suspected but couldn’t prove as being correct, until the February 2019 issue of the newsletter. Back in the old days of Weatheradio Canada when meteorologists read out the information on tape, they wrote their own synopses. You could tell by how certain words were emphasized, by certain people and the way people had spoken, what was written on paper. Some did it in a straightforward manner, while others would emphasize certain adjectives like: cold, wet, stormy, cool, etc.
In 2002, I had asked about whether the weather synopsis would return to Weatheradio Canada and I was told that it probably would not be roaring back. Could Avipad’s or i-Notify handle something like that now? Obviously, NWR can and has continued the weather synopsis with all of the voice and software changes.
I had included one or two synopses in the February 2019 Weather Radio Listeners Newsletter post, when I had included the entire forecast cycles for January 7 and 8 1989. When I had read the entire text of both doc files I was given in 2012, it brought back memories of hearing the cycle as it was back then. For those who were actually lucky enough to have a WX radio throughout the 1980s and 1990s, how did the cycle go from what it was, to what it became in 2000 and part of 2001?
Remember, I had been away from Weatheradio Canada for nearly 10 years and I had returned on February 7th 2001, after the King City Radar TV channel was off the air in my area in August 1991. All I had to keep up with the weather was the Toronto ATAD and that was it, until Talking Yellow Pages in 1999 and 2000, when I had discovered that the weather was available (strait from Environment Canada) by pressing 4 digits on the keypad and the same with Starphone, until early 2005. Talking Yellow Pages was discontinued some time in 2001 and that left me with the Toronto ATAD and a new WX radio I had purchased on February 7th that year. I had gone over how bad it was and please, don’t make me write about it again. Even thinking about it makes me want to go ape. I also had Weather Menu, but that was a 1900 number and you know that those numbers charge money per minute and thankfully, you can not call them on any cell phone, including today’s smart phones. Why would you anyway? If we had Hello Weather! as an alternative to the ATADs and not as a replacement, I would use both, especially if it also offered telephone numbers for each ATAD across Canada. I had called them all at one point as I was asked to do so by Weatheradio Canada and I had to take down everything, including all the options, partitions and in both languages. I got the numbers from calling 411 and with the help of Environment Canada and I would start calling them in the summer of 2001, with the first ones being Hamilton and St Catharines, with Windsor in October and nearly the rest of Ontario, by 2006. Anyway, how did I go from the weather synopsis to Weather recordings on the telephone?
Anyway, from what I gather, the cycle began to be streamlined in the early 90s, when all of cottage country and Niagara were excluded from Toronto XMJ 225’s broadcast cycle, with the expantion of the network. When I returned to Weatheradio Canada in 2001, Toronto had all of the regions we heard in the broadcast until September 8 2021, except that all of Dufferin County was included, until some time in November 2005. Oh….and the weather synopses were gone when I had come back as well.
The first sign of the eventual shedding of that part of the cycle, was when the meteorologists had stopped identifying themselves, when they read out the weather synopsis. Little did I know that it would be gone and we had Avipad’s and the new voices from Nuance with i-Notify. I actually miss hearing that for a couple of reasons. I liked it when meteorologist describe what is coming at us from the standpoint, of using basic terms us regular people could understand, with a basic knowledge of the weather on TV news broadcasts. I also like it because if something was on the horizon, we would get an idea as to whether there just might be a watch or a warning needing to be issued. In other words, it is easier to plan out not just the day, but the week ahead much better, as the extended forecast is basic and doesn’t give too much away, other than lo and hi temperatures and possible weather conditions, after 48 hours.
It certainly helps when NWS has their hazardous weather outlook and living near a Bordertown, when I look at Buffalo on the Weather Office app, I will have some idea, of what may be coming to Toronto and the same is true, when I listen to KEB98. The 2013 ice storm is a prime example of this and I was more prepared for what was about to happen, not just from the weather forecast side, but also from the standpoint of what could be coming as a part of what was in the forecast in more granular detail. That is why some of us listen to more than one WXR, especially if we live close to either the Canadian or the American border going into and out of Canada. If you listen to Weatheradio Canada, you probably listen to an NWR WXR too, not just because you only hear English being spoken. Right? You get a synopsis and climate data too. Now that I think about it, I hope someday that we get climate data and travelers forecasts back on Weatheradio Canada, for those who have no interest of going on the EccC website, or calling Hello Weather! or Bonjour Météo. By the way, no weather synopsis on the phone either so, your SOL and you will only hear it on NWR as of February 2024. If this changes in the coming days on Weatheradio Canada, I hope that I am among the first to hear it, or any changes which may occur with the broadcast cycle.
Anyway, that’s it for this post and let’s be back in May, when the Weather should be warmer and hopefully more sunshine. I hope that spring will come roaring back into Canada and not be timid and leave us having to wear winter clothes, for longer than March or April.