Weather forecasting. Is it the art of divination or the application of science and technology to predict the conditions of the atmosphere for a given location at a future time? Hard to tell some days.
As Canada makes the rocky transition from Winter to Spring, join RCIScience as we explore how meteorologists forecast the weather, why storm chasers deliberately pursue severe weather phenomena and the importance of longitudinal climate monitoring.
About the Speakers
Moderator Nadine Powell fell into weather by accident and loved it so much that she stuck with it. She graduated from The University of the West Indies with a BA degree in Geography in 1996, where she found weather to be one of the fascinating components of geographical studies. After working for the Meteorological Service of Jamaica followed by the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology, Barbados, she began her career as a TV weather presenter at Television Jamaica in 2000. In 2002, she emigrated to Canada and began as a presenter at City TV, Toronto and then went on to Global TV, Toronto. She has been at The Weather Network since 2008 as both a Briefing Meteorologist and On-camera Presenter. During her time at The Weather Network, she also completed a B Sc. Degree in Atmospheric Science at York University.
Johanna Wagstaffe is the meteorologist and scientist for CBC Vancouver and CBC News Network. Wagstaffe's academic background in seismology and earth science has led her to cover major earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, floods and the Copenhagen, Paris and Glasgow Climate Change conference. She has hosted three award-winning CBC podcasts including: Fault Lines, 2050: Degrees of Change, and is the author of several children's science books.
Nevin deMilliano co-founded the Prairie Storm Chasers, a group dedicated to targeting , documenting, and reporting severe weather across the Canadian Prairies and tornado alley. He also enjoys speaking at schools and universities about the science behind storm chasing.
Alexandra Clarke worked for Temagami First Nation as their Climate Change Researcher, looking at how Climate Change is and will impact the vibrant remote island community accessible by ice road during the winter. She is passionate about spreading science based education and awareness and recognizes a great need for all communities to have capacity to look at the effects of Climate Change and Cumulative Effects.