Weather stops at the US/Canada border

[photofly]

Does it bother anyone else that TC likes to pretend in the GFA that areas of precipitation, organised cloud, icing etc all end at the US border over lake Ontario?

[into the blue]

GFA (like many other Canadian aviation weather products) is compiled by Environment Canada. As to why they do it...pretty simple: like any government agency they don't want to be responsible for something that is within/over somebody else's domain. Remember, weather forecast from GFA is often among the primary criteria that are used for judging a pilot's pre-flight decision-making after an accident has occured. If EC provides an inaccurate wx description for some area over the US territory, then that is just an additional and unnecessary liability for them. I do understand though that it is a nuisance for those who fly across the border often.

[Panama Jack]

Interestingly NOAA and the UK Met office publishes aviation weather forecast charts for wide swaths of the Earth. Ditto for the weather office of the Middle Eastern country where I live.

But it reminds me about how some people in the US imagine the 49th Parallel being defined by a 6-foot high wall of snow, with nothing but igloos, polar bears, industrious beavers, Mounties on horses, and other Christmasy scenes as far as the eye can see beyond that.

[photofly]

I don't care if TC doesn't want to tell me the weather forecast for Buffalo because I can see what the NOAA says, at aviationweather.org. In fact I can look at the weather for most of Ontario there too, so clearly it doesn't bother them to provide weather forecasting in someone else's domain.

What bugs me is the way that TC without fail draws a solid line to terminate any enclosed or shaded area right down the middle of lake Ontario implying the weather condition actually stops along that line, even when it doesn't. If the condition extends outside the mapped area they should make that clear.

[frac]

Interestingly NOAA and the UK Met office publishes aviation weather forecast charts for wide swaths of the Earth.

It might have nothing to do with that but both WAFC London (UK Metoffice) and WAFC Washington (NOAA) have a worldwide mandate to fulfill requirements of the ICAO Annex 3.

Therefore, it is a requirement for both NOAA and the UK Metoffice to provide worldwide weather coverage.

Kind Regards
Marc-Olivier

[into the blue]

Contact either NavCanada (who distributes the product) or Environment Canada (who prepares it) or both of them:
service@navcanada.ca
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/mainmenu ... _us_e.html
As far as I know there is a good chance that you will at least receive a reply from NavCanada.
Once again, TC has nothing to do with this.

[jump154]

What worries me more, flying in Southern Ontario is not the weather that stops at the border but the weather the STARTS at the border and is headed my way . In the meantime to make sure there is nothing coming at me I use aviationweather.gov ....

[BTyyj]

But it reminds me about how some people in the US imagine the 49th Parallel being defined by a 6-foot high wall of snow, with nothing but igloos, polar bears, industrious beavers, Mounties on horses, and other Christmasy scenes as far as the eye can see beyond that.

Highway 2/89 Canadian/US border last week :

[paddy]

Weather had historically taken an abrupt turn at this point in fact i can remember watching US news growing up an along the same line you are referring there was a temperature spread of 32 degrees (0 degrees above the line and 32 below). It became clear to me at that point that this is how they decided where the borders should go.

[. ._]

I just always assumed the U.S.A. had a standard atmosphere, so why bother reporting it?

[photofly]

I've emailed Navcanada. I'll post again if I get an intelligent reply.

[FenderManDan]

I've emailed Navcanada. I'll post again if I get an intelligent reply.

I had this discussion in the ground school when the weather topics were discussed and while looking into the navcanada generated GFA. I emailed the navcanada about this and this is what reply was

GFA coverage area is determined by the Meteorological Services of Canada who produce these charts. Although the possibility of working with the FAA/NWS to develop a joint “North American” GFA was discussed, this has not yet come to pass. Until that occurs, the GFAs will be limited to depiction of Canadian weather in Canadian domestic airspace.

So I guess in the mean time, we should look at the pic one of the forumites posted earlier.

[photofly]

It's not the fact that they don't give you the forecast for the US that bothers me, it's something quite different. It's just the solid line they draw around icing/precip/turbulence that implies the conditino ends at the border. They should leave the area open at the edge of the map (which I think they already do with areas of organised cloud cover).