Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC)

What's New

Discover what's new on our web site.

June 26, 2008

Improved Marine Weather Pages - Many changes and improvements will be available to web visitors of the marine weather pages of the "Weatheroffice" website beginning June 26, 2008. The new pages offer mariners improved access to the various marine information products generated by Environment Canada. A summary of the key changes follows:

• Marine warning maps which display warnings and watches are colour coded on national and regional maps. A colour legend of red, yellow, blue and green colours at the bottom of the maps links to a new "marine alerts" page defining the suite of marine and ice watches and warnings. The "green" or ended warnings stay on the site for only one hour before being removed.

• 15 new regional maps are now available to select marine areas in Canada. The geographic coverage does overlap with nearby marine regions to reduce the need to navigate to a second map. When there are divisions in the unique marine areas required by differing forecasts, these splits or boundaries are shown in the marine areas on the maps. Only one division in a marine area is displayed.

• Improved navigation will enable users to choose their marine area of interest through regional maps. Once at the forecast page for a marine area, selecting another marine area can be done through the "Another Area" TAB, or the navigation footer near the bottom of the page which lists all the marine areas within the region. The "Another Area" page will display the current regional map for selection while the navigation footer will list the national map as well as all 15 marine regions.

• Tabbed browsing exists for all the marine areas. A number of TABS are available: Forecast, Weather Conditions, Ice Conditions, Warnings, Synopsis, Maps, Glossary and Another Area; which allow users to select a variety of information products for the marine area of interest. Content can vary from marine area to marine area depending on the marine season and availability of information.

• Warning banners, when necessary, will appear on Forecast, Weather Conditions, Ice Conditions and Synopsis TABS or pages with weather conditions or forecast content. These warning banners link to the Warnings TAB, which holds any descriptive text for localised weather warnings as well as a list of all warnings in effect. For the majority of marine and ice warnings, the forecast content under Forecast or Ice Conditions, will serve as or contain the details of the warning.

• Extended Marine Forecasts provide wind forecasts for the period from day three to five. It serves as an outlook and is not as detailed as the near term forecast periods.

• Weather Conditions - Provides access to weather reports from a network of buoys and coastal weather stations via clickable maps. Selecting a station will display the latest hourly weather conditions. In addition, the 24 hour history for a station and a regional summary of weather stations and/or buoys are also selectable.

  • Metric units are used for all reported weather elements except for wind speeds which are expressed in knots only - the same unit used in the marine forecasts.
  • These weather condition maps are designed for the selection of stations and/or buoys. The marine forecast areas are not selectable and are outlined for reference purposes only.

• Ice Conditions - Provides access to the latest text bulletins for ice coverage and iceberg presence. This content is seasonal and limited to areas of active shipping.

  • More complete content offering is available at the Canadian Ice Service.

• Synopsis - Provides access to the latest available technical marine synopsis. Marine Weather Statements containing information about potentially important weather events are also posted in this content area.

• Map Links - Provides a number of links to other pages which include radar and satellite images, ice charts, weather maps and lightning maps.

• Glossary - Provides a list of definitions for marine weather-related vocabulary. Links to a Beaufort Wind Scale Table and MAFOR Decode Table are also included.

• Links to additional content:

  • All pages retain a link to the Marine Services On-line Portal which directs users to other Government of Canada marine content such as tide tables, navigation charts, regulations, boating safety and other information resources.
  • Link to US Marine Web pages for marine regional areas which border American waters.
  • Links to a comprehensive brochure outlining the marine weather program across the country.

The Green Lane^TM,
Environment Canada's World Wide Web Site.