Environment Canada Marks World Meteorological Day

OTTAWA, March 23, 2006 - Today marks the United Nation’s World Meteorological Day, which commemorates the coming into force of the Convention on the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1950. This year’s theme is “Preventing and Mitigating Natural Disasters,” and Environment Canada is taking the opportunity to raise awareness about preparing for severe weather.

World Meteorological Day is an opportunity to recognize the valuable public weather service that Environment Canada provides to Canadians 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

“At Environment Canada, we’re particularly concerned with severe weather conditions, and our priority is, and will always be, to enable Canadians to take action to protect their environment, their safety and security,” said the Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of the Environment. “I encourage Canadians to continue using the vast array of tools we offer to help prepare against the potentially devastating effects of severe weather.”

Each year, Environment Canada’s Meteorological Services produces over 500,000 public weather forecasts, 400,000 aviation forecasts, 200,000 marine weather forecasts and issues approximately 14,000 severe weather warnings and 3,500 ice hazard warnings.

Canada is not immune from the devastating effects of severe weather conditions. Canadians need to be aware of the risk of severe weather and take appropriate action. To ensure this is possible, Environment Canada provides media and public weather warnings, marine weather warnings and a variety of other weather-related information through the following tools:

• Internet: The weather office web site http://www.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca is the Government of Canada's most frequently used Internet sites with over seven billion hits per year.
• Telephone: Environment Canada's free automated telephone answering devices (ATADs), provide recordings of the latest weather forecasts as well as weather watches and warnings. Consult the blue pages of your telephone directory to know the number in your region. There is also a 1-900 user-pay service that enables callers to speak directly to a meteorologist (1-900-565-5555).
• Weatheradio: Bilingual weather information is continually broadcast over Weatheradio VHF frequencies. Users can receive audio signal and text weather warning messages.

For more information about the World Meteorological Organization, please visit the following web site: www.wmo.ch.

For more information, please contact:

Sébastien Bois
Media Relations
(819) 934-8008 or 1-888-908-8008