Precise, targeted severe weather warnings coming to Canada

Canadians will soon notice a major improvement to urgent severe weather warnings issued throughout the country.

Forecasters with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) will soon issue targeted severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings that are limited only to areas under the greatest threat from life-threatening hazards.

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Targeted, more precise warnings for your area

A warning means that dangerous conditions are imminent or occurring. Until now, warnings for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes were issued for geographic areas called zones.

Some of these zones are very large compared to the relatively small size of a thunderstorm, often causing many communities to receive alerts not intended for them.

Beginning this month, ECCC will now issue targeted warnings for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes by drawing shapes (polygons) on a map. These polygons identify only those communities most likely to be impacted by dangerous conditions.

This change introduces higher precision to lifesaving warnings, resulting in fewer notifications for communities not immediately in harm’s way. Such an improvement will allow folks to better respond and act ahead of dangerous conditions.

Forecasters in the U.S. have employed polygon-based severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings for nearly two decades. The use of targeted, location-based warnings is a proven success. If you’re in a warning polygon, you know the danger applies to you.

Wireless emergency alerts will prove most noticeable

Folks across Canada will see the most noticeable change through wireless emergency alerts, which are activated for both tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings issued for extremely strong winds or very large hail.

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Wireless emergency alerts are sent to mobile devices connected to a cell phone tower within the warned area. The previous zone-based system used to push these alerts out to a wide area, sometimes even dozens of kilometres away from the dangerous storm.

Using the new system, only cell phone towers in and immediately around the polygon will send out a wireless emergency alert, significantly reducing the number of notifications the average person will receive during severe weather season.

Precise, geotargeted severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings will also apply to alerts pushed through The Weather Network’s app and website, regardless of platform or operating system.