The Canadian Meteorological Centre Operations Branch quality assures and provides analysis and forecast outputs to Regional Offices across Canada for use as a basis for weather, climate and air quality services to the public and other clients and users. Similar services are provided to the forecast offices that support operations of the Department of National Defense that are global in nature.. It also provides outputs directly to the MSC's public website, and to specialized users, such as NavCanada, Pelmorex, Canadian Press, and other businesses under a cost recovery framework. The Branch operates a highly complex automated meteorological production system which processes meteorological observations taken at locations throughout the world as well as numerous other datasets and produces output meteorological products in the form of analyses and forecasts of the state of the atmosphere over the planet. The analyses and prognoses produced every day of the year by the Operations Branch provide the basis for all weather forecasting activities in Canada.
The highly specialized support to environmental emergencies is provided in support to the Federal Nuclear Emergency Plan, led by Health Canada. This service is based on special expertise using numerical modeling tools, integrated with global numerical prediction model outputs of the CMC, that track the movement of airborne radioactivity and tracers around the globe. For example, operational services are provided to track the movement of airborne volcanic ash to assist in aircraft operations.
The staff of the Branch networks, consults routinely, or participates through committees with the other MSC Program managers and staff, and with other managers and staff of other government departments and national and international organizations (WMO, ICAO, IAEA, CTBTO) to ensure that the delivery of CMC products and services are well coordinated and achieved.
Analysis and Prognosis Division is responsible for the real time around-the-clock (24/7) monitoring and quality assurance of the highly complex automated analysis and forecasting system, for the operational evaluation of new automated systems, for the provision of subjective outputs such as analysis and prognoses, for the provision of real time services (e.g. aviation products, national media charts, etc) and for the real time provision of basic Environmental Emergency Response services.
Environmental Emergency Response Division is responsible for the provision of modeling and advisory services at the national and international levels in support of environmental emergencies, for airborne nuclear or volcanic ash incidents, and for the development of an increased state of preparedness, and as well advises on MSC's national program related to "emergencies" in general.
Implementation and Operational Services Division is responsible for the implementation and maintenance of the highly complex operational and parallel analysis and numerical weather prediction automated systems, and for maintaining and providing various services, and access to the numerical weather prediction archives and real time databases to a wide range of users in Canada and around the world.
External Relations is responsible for arranging, planning, and the coordination of all cost recovered services to external clients of the CMC, such as those provided to NavCanada, Department of National Defence, The Weather Network/Météomédia, and universities and numerous other clients.
The Green LaneTM,
Environment Canada's World Wide Web Site.