Sable Island Station:

Meteorology and Climatology

(February 2003)

Meteorology and climatology are studies of weather. While meteorology deals with understanding and prediction of actual weather conditions, climatology focuses on long-term averages and trends (e.g. climate change). On Sable Island, meteorological and climatological data collected include records and measurements of temperature, humidity, visibility, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, precipitation, icing, snow depth, sunshine, sky and global radiation, and lightning and thunder. A wide range of manual and electronic instruments are used at the Sable Island station, including the Automatic Weather Observing System (AWOS) which was installed in 1994. The meteorological and climatological programs are carried out for the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC), a branch of Environment Canada.

Currently, there is a 24-hour aviation weather program, and data are collected primarily by the AWOS system. There are also three manned observations every morning - station technicians check readings from various back-up sensors to confirm the accuracy of the AWOS instruments. These data are transmitted via satellite link to the MSC regional headquarters in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. There they are combined and analyzed with data from other locations to provide actuals (what kind of weather is presently happening where) and predictions (what kind of weather is likely to happen later).

In the climatology program the focus is on gathering information for climate study rather than collection of data for use in weather forecasting. Thus, in addition to those collected in the meteorology program, a number of other observations are made, including bright sunshine measurements, occurrences of thunder, depth of snow on the ground, actual precipitation amounts, and continuous monitoring of total sky radiation and net global radiation.

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