Local area weather knowledge manuals - A new Nav Canada weather resource
The centralization of weather services and creation of only a few Flight Information Centers (FIC’s) in Canada resulted in the loss of local area briefers for many areas.
The NavCan system tries to account for that with more advanced technology such as available radar data; however, a program was needed that would educate briefers about local area phenomenon for all of the areas of Canada.
NavCan got on with the task and created Local Area Weather Knowledge Manuals for their flight service specialists (apparently a first in the world) and at COPA’s request is now providing this data online for the entire population.
Pilots can access all of the regional manuals online at www.navcanada.ca. Select English or French as your language preference and click on Flight Planning and then Local Area Weather Knowledge Manuals for your area(s) of interest.
The manuals are beneficial not only as a planning tool when you fly to a new area of the country, but also as a means to educate yourself about seasonal and local effects, specific airport climatology and other information to prepare you for what you may encounter in those other regions – or your own.
After nearly 40 years of studying weather as a professional pilot and reviewing many meteorological books for articles and 25 years living in my region, I thought I understood the weather here pretty well and was accomplished as a weather prognosticator. (Well, my short term forecasts are typically more accurate than the met. services).
Truth to tell, I found the manual offering very useful and informative and recommend it to everyone.
While many of us are good guessers at what the weather will do based on our personal local knowledge, few of us truly understand all of the weather phenomenon that create these patterns. Visitors to the website will become knowledgeable on these trends and occurrences. The more you visit this website the more you are likely to appreciate and enjoy the offerings and benefit from additional knowledge.
Although there were errors, the ones I caught were of an editorial nature and did not detract from the usefulness of the information.
For instance, the historical wind direction information for Victoria shows the typical summer and winter charts – both labeled Summer. (One simply needs to scroll through the file to look at some of the other airports to note the winter chart appears on the right).
Also, the Airport Climatology file starts out with airports alphabetically listed with Abbotsford being first and then places Victoria and Vancouver in the middle of the file and finishing with Fort Nelson at the last. It would be easier to use if the alphabetical format was used throughout.
In the Airport Climatology segment, detailed data is given for the airport in terms of weather phenomenon/patterns, including historical wind data and the time of day during winter and summer when ceilings or visibilities are below VFR.
These charts were very handy as I was able to determine the weather is significantly better in Victoria than any of the Ontario airports I looked at i.e.: Buttonville, Sudbury, Kingston, London, Timmins, St. Catherines and dozens of others.
In fact, I couldn’t find a location in Ontario that had more VFR conditions than Victoria….can I expect some reader mail over this? You see, this is how it works. You elect the governing party for Canada and we get the good weather. Fair’s fair – when it comes to weather.
The Local Area Weather Knowledge Manuals also points out the difficulty meteorologists have in various areas with creating accurate forecasts due to complicated weather patterns and phenomenon occurring at various times.
As an example, the British Columbia regions content list is reproduced below to give an idea of the size of the PDF files that are associated with each.
The Weather of British Columbia British
- Table of contents, Introduction, Chapter 1 - Basics of Meteorology [PDF]
- Chapter 2 - Aviation Weather Hazards [PDF 1.1 Mb]
- Chapter 3 - Weather Patterns of British Columbia
- Chapter 4 - Seasonal Weather and Local Effects [PDF 2.3 Mb]
- Chapter 5 - Airport Climatology [PDF]
- Full document [PDF 13 Mb]
In addition to providing abundant local area information on weather for flight service specialists, the website offerings are also an excellent source of review and training for pilots who want to brush up or educate themselves on the creation, movement and affects of various weather systems and their seasonal variations.
Perhaps in time, it might be possible for Transport Canada to recognize a number of hours of review and research in the website area as qualification for the biennial flight review requirements.
In my opinion, for planning flights to other regions and understanding the trend of an existing weather situation is extremely important since weather plays a significant part in a large number of incidents and accidents.
This website is highly recommended and chock a block full of useful and well presented information - with thanks to NavCan for this excellent compilation of information. Entry into the website requires no user name, password or fee.
Ken is a COPA director who lives in Victoria, BC. He provides services internationally in advanced training, expert witness, flight test and aircraft sales. He has logged 15,000 hours on 375 types of fixed wing and rotary aircraft. Soaring his Diamond Xtreme is what he does for pleasure.
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