Providing Meteorological Services to the Canadian Armed Forces through
Network-based Services
18 Aug 2014
Martha Anderson
Director, Meteorology and Oceanography
UNCLASSIFIED

Overview
 The CF Weather and Oceanographic Service
 Network-based weather services:
 Interactive delivery
 Self-serve

Canadian Forces Weather &
Oceanographic Service
MISSION STATEMENT
The Canadian Forces Weather & Oceanographic Service
(CFWOS) provides specialized meteorological & oceanographic
(METOC) information for strategic, operational and tactical advantage on a global scale.
VISION
To be an integral component of CF Command & Control (C2) and Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) initiatives, providing leading edge global METOC services to decision makers and operators.

Military MetOc Support Principles
 “one operation, one forecast”
 Environment Canada, host nation or coalition lead nation forecasts to be used wherever possible
 CF Weather Office web site provides common suite of information

Components of METOC Support for
Operations / Exercises
1.
Climate data for planning
2.
Daily support in-theatre
•
• weather observations
Weather forecasts and warnings
•
•
• Information on impact of environment on capabilities
Advice to intelligence and targeting
Other environmental information (floods, forest fires, space weather)
3. Delivery / Dissemination
• Remote weather briefing or on-site

CFWOS Services:
Forecasting and
Briefing
Haiti
Gulf of Aden

CFWOS Transformation Project
 Joint Met Centre – CFB Gagetown, NB
• Met Tech teams prepare for deployment
• On-the-job training for briefing and forecasting
• Centralized briefing
• Centralized forecast production
• Development work on products, techniques and tools
 MetOc Centres – Halifax, NS and Esquimalt, BC
• Briefing and forecasting, for fleet and regional commanders
• Oceanographic programme

Joint Met Center:
Building Extension Completed 2013

Remote Brief Capability
 Connects weather expert to users on three internal networks (unclassified and classified)
 deliver interactive information via videoconference, web cams, webinars, teleconference, and chat.

Remote Briefing Capability

EC FORECASTS
GLOBAL
INFO
GLOBAL
INFO

Ongoing Intranet
Service Initiatives
 Google Earth MetOc layers

Download Capabilities

Ongoing Intranet
Service Initiatives
 MetOc NWP datasets for classified decision support systems
 NITES 2 Redesign (N2R) workstation from USN, to serve fields to the Global
Command and Control System map, plus other METOC applications

Under Consideration …
 OGC web services
 MetOcIce Data Warehouse
 Connect DND users to CMC GeoMet
 Ensemble Prediction System probability products
 Improved Impact Matrix presentation

ARMY / AIR
Area of Interest
Valid Period (Next 48 hours)
Impacted Resources
NATO WEATHER IMPACT CHART
CFB KINGSTON
130800Z APR 12 to 140800Z APR 12
0800-1200 1200-1600 1600-2000 2000-0000 0000-0400 0400-0800
Vehicular Movement
Dismounted Movement
Artillery
Air Defense
Para Drop
Air (Fixed)
C
W
TB
C
W
TB
C
W
TB
C
W
TB
W
TB
W
TB
Air (Helo)
Tact Airlift (Fixed)
NBC Chemical W W W W W W
Intelligence
NO IMPACT
C C
Weather Keys
V-Visibility T – Temperature C – Ceilings P – Precipitation W – Wind
W/C – Windchill SD – Snow Depth I – Icing TB – Turbulence
Moderate
Impact
C C
Effectiveness reduced to 25% – 75%
Severe
Impact
C C
Effectiveness reduced to 0-25%

User Perceptions and Practices
 Generation gap on interactive and self-
Intranet service adaptation levels
 “pretty = accurate” even if the source is less credible

Questions?
Martha Anderson
Director Meteorology and Oceanography
Martha.Anderson@forces.gc.ca
613-996-3648