Atlantic Storm Prediction Centre

The Atlantic Storm Prediction Centre (ASPC) provides timely and accurate weather forecasts, warnings and information to the residents of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Iles de la Madeleine. The Centre is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to reduce risks to Atlantic Canadians from high-impact weather and other weather related environmental hazards. The Centre is also responsible for an air quality forecast program and the marine and sea state forecasts for the maritime waters out to the 200 mile limit, including most of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In addition to forecasting, staff is also responsible for the operation of the equipment used to disseminate these forecasts and warnings.

The Canadian Hurricane Centre (CHC) is co-located with the ASPC. During the hurricane season forecasters carefully monitor all storms of tropical origin. When a storm begins to threaten Canadian waters or land, specially trained meteorologists in the CHC track the tropical storms and provide guidance to other Canadian storm prediction centres.

Some highlights of the ASPC include:

• The ASPC lends weather support to emergency response personnel during emergencies, whether on land or at sea.
• Forecasters at the centre work with many tools and technologies including: Doppler weather radars, weather satellites, observations from a network of upper atmosphere and surface monitors, a network of offshore weather buoys, ship reports, volunteer reports and a variety of computer model output.
• The cornerstone of the CHC is a workstation using a multitasking, X-Window environment providing the meteorologist with simultaneous displays of satellite imagery, numerical guidance, forecast bulletins, and observational data from around the world. The software program, Hurricane Forecasting Graphical Interface (HURR), enables the forecaster to view historical and real-time tropical cyclone information, plot data, construct storm tracks, and translate track data into text bulletin.