Daily weather discussions are an important focus of the internship training. Here, an intern discusses the latest weather radar data.
High speed workstations are an important tool used in Environment Canada weather offices. Here, interns are learning to retrieve and display large amounts of meteorological data from a variety of sources, such as weather balloons and weather satellites.
|
Environment Canada's Regional Headquarters in Dartmouth hosts a state of the art training facility for the initial training of meteorologists. The Meteorologist Operational Internship Program is designed to train university graduates in the science of weather forecasting. Internship teaches the practical application of the meteorological theory learned in university. This is done through several approaches including self study, computer based learning, and written examinations, but much of the internship is spent learning practical skills through hands on exercises.
The internship program teaches forecasting skills in four stages: observations, analysis, diagnosis and forecasting. The first step involves acquiring knowledge of weather observations and the meteorological observing system. Analysis refers to the skill of organizing the data into patterns so that one can make sense of all of the information (for example, learning to draw weather maps). In doing diagnosis, the meteorologist applies knowledge of the physics of the atmosphere to explain why the weather is behaving as it is at the current time.
The final skill, forecasting, is where the meteorologist pulls all of this information together to make a prognosis of the future state of the atmosphere. A large portion of the intern's time in the final portion of internship is spent on the desk in a forecast office under the guidance of an experienced operational meteorologist.
Depending on the skill and experience of the intern, the internship program can take anywhere from eight months to one year to complete. Graduation from the program is determined by a peer review of experienced meteorologists. In the past, Canada's program for the initial training of meteorologists received world wide recognition and praise, and the current operational internship program continues this tradition.
|
