What sort of graphical weather data do controllers have at their disposal and what are the sources? When pilots ask ATC whether they are showing any weather, the response is almost universally "my radar is not very good, yours is much better, but..." Is your weather radar just based on primary radar returns or can you overlay Environment Canada data? I know you can see lightning data in what seems to be real time, which is often quite helpful for us. It always merits a bit of a chuckle to hear the "my radar is not very good" comment from ATC because in the USA controllers often give range, bearing, rainfall intensity, vertical extent, etc of cells, so clearly they have access to something much more sophisticated. This is not a complaint, I'm just wondering how everything ties together up here.

Controllers have a secondary radar feed called NARDS that will show lightning strikes, and to a certain extent, areas of precipitation. The reason they do not have more is because it isn't part of their job. The provision of weather information is the responsibility of the FICs, who do have access to all the weather radars, satellite data, observation data, etc.

I am not sure if CAATS has additional data, but NARDS in towers provides very basic weather info.

It is based solely on the Nav Canada primary radar return (no Environment Canada data) so it just gives a very, very basic idea of precipitation intensity. It also can "miss" large swaths of high intensity precipitation, so it must be used with caution.

But like you've said, we do have live lightning data which is useful.

thatdaveguy wrote:I am not sure if CAATS has additional data, but NARDS in towers provides very basic weather info.

It is based solely on the Nav Canada primary radar return (no Environment Canada data) so it just gives a very, very basic idea of precipitation intensity. It also can "miss" large swaths of high intensity precipitation, so it must be used with caution.

But like you've said, we do have live lightning data which is useful.

It's the same on CAATS, just different colors. We also have lightning strikes appear. Pretty much it though so usually we rely on pilots to give us a precise picture as to what they see on their scope.