Environment Canada disbands radar research team amid cuts to weather services

[Robert VA3ROM]

From CBC News. May 24, 2026. 

Environment Canada (EC) has disbanded its radar research team and halted development of radar technology, prompting concerns among farmers and storm chasers about the reliability of weather forecasts. The move raises questions about the future accuracy of storm tracking and severe-weather alerts, potentially affecting planning and risk management. Critics warn that losing in-house radar expertise could slow responses to rapidly evolving conditions and reduce forecasting nuance. The development signals a broader shift in how meteorological data is produced and used, with stakeholders awaiting clarification on potential alternatives and timelines. The overall effect is a pause in momentum for advanced radar capabilities, leaving the forecasting ecosystem to adapt to an uncertain path forward.

EC would not discuss staffing changes with CBC News. It confirmed in a statement that changes to radar research have been made, but said it will continue to provide expertise in maintaining Canada’s radar network. Experts say EC's radars were already 15 years behind the capabilities of those in the U.S.

Research cuts coincide with Environment Canada investing in AI forecasting.

And, Wow! Is all I have to say.

[Dave Doler]

Here's the announcement from EC.

I remain skeptical that the referenced AI models are mature enough to justify disbanding the EC weather radar expertise group.

The law of unintended consequences may make an appearance in this instance 

https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/news/2026/04/canada-to-launch-hybrid-ai-weather-model-to-strengthen-forecasting-for-severe-weather.html

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[Robert VA3ROM]

But wait, there's still more to come... "Après moi, le déluge!"  

To paraphrase software engineer Grady Booch: "A fool with an AI tool is still a fool." Simply having tools or resources does not equate to competence. GIGO, as we say in the programming world. This is very much in line with your "unintended consequences", Dave.  

And perhaps we have indeed gone bonkers up here.

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[Dave Doler]

Perhaps, but narrowly speaking. I am curious about the financial incentives to 'be done' with radio up there. The savings must be tremendous 🙄

As to going bonkers generally, I'm afraid we have that covered pretty well down here 

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[David Themens]

Hi,

They're keeping radar experts in the operations and forecast teams but are terminating their radar research programme. The timing is a bit odd, given that they upgraded the network to full polarimetric S-Band systems just a couple years ago, but they did a huge team buildout a bit over a decade ago to prepare Canada to be able to use that type of radar (and make the case for upgrading to it) and it could just be that there isn't much more that they need a pure radar research team for outside of the existing expertise in the operations team. Weather radar research will still be conducted at Canadian universities, like McGill, and if there are new techniques/technologies to deploy, I'm sure they'll repeat the same cycle again. Whatever "experts" they consulted about the capabilities of the Canadian radars clearly aren't aware of the recent upgrades, which brought the system in parity with those in the US and Europe. The irony in Canada being so late to adopt polarimetric radar in operations is in that they were the first to develop the techniques and demonstrate their utility for weather monitoring while being one of the last to deploy it operationally. The closure of the team will have no impact on Canada's operational weather capability; although, there's no guarantee that there aren't other cuts under the hood that might. 

The AI timing is just news hyperbole. Canada has been a world leader in atmospheric modeling for decades and all of the big players in that space are researching how to integrate AI crap into their models. Some of which is actually viable (short term and nowcast advective forecast, advances automatic differentiation, and flow-dependent finite difference numerical approaches, for example) and others will be replaced shortly after they get deployed (AI weather map interpretation and AI mid range forecasting, for example). Every country invested in AI stuff in weather two-four years ago and the outcomes of that are now beginning to come out. It has nothing to do with radar research getting terminated; in fact, the AI funding comes out of a Treasury Board special allocation to ECCC (amongst other agencies) and was separate from their core operating budget. The real issue is that all government agencies were asked to make successive 10% and 15% budget cuts two years ago and that increased pressure on agencies to trim anything that is in the lower 26.5% of their priorities list. The same can be said for the closure of CHU. Some of the cuts are to be reinvested in targeted areas, particularly in defence and trade infrastructure, such as in significantly expanding the Canadian Space Weather Center at NRCan, the joining of the ESA Space Safety programme, and the DND Over-The-Horizon-Radar programme amongst many, many other program reprioritizations.

Cheers,

David

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[Dave Doler]

David, 

That was an extremely thorough and informative insight into this decision. Thank you.

As for HamSCI, I'll leave it to the leadership team to determine what the loss of CHU means to the research.

What it means to the safety of the Canadian people however, remains to be seen.

73

Dave K3DFD 

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[Marcus D. Leech]

I kind of tangentially knew about the expansion of the NRCan Space
Weather capabilities.  They're finally (after literally almost a
decade!) getting funding to replace the existing
  riometer network with instruments that I helped design many years
ago.   They have also been advertising for a few new jobs at NRCan in
the Space Weather group.  Were
  I younger and more enthusiastic about full-time work (I'm neither),
I'd apply myself.