Getting a fix on Nunavut’s violent storms

JACKIE WALLACE

A team of weather experts is coming to Iqaluit with expensive equipment and dreams of being able to better predict the area’s potentially dangerous storms.

John Hanesiak, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba, and researchers from McGill University and the University of Toronto will begin their study with a small pilot project this fall, but the bulk of the research will be done in the fall of 2007.

Southeast Baffin has some of the most frequent and severe storms in the Arctic, according to Hanesiak.

“There have been no real studies done of the weather in the eastern Arctic and that’s our motivation for the project,” he said. “It’s never been done before because it’s so expensive.”

The researchers have a budget of $3 million, which they will receive over the next four years. Hanesiak says that at least half of that money will be spent on equipment.

“We’re going to deploy a lot of instrumentation,” he said. “It’s a one-shot deal in the fall of 2007 because of funding.”

They are spending all of their money on weather balloons, surface weather stations and a research plane equipped with radars.

“Iqaluit is one of the only places in the Arctic that launches weather balloons on a regular basis,” said Hanesiak. “That’s another reason we are going to Iqaluit.”

Environment Canada currently launches weather balloons every 12 hours in Iqaluit and the team plans to launch weather balloons every three hours during storms in September and October.

The balloons measure the temperature, humidity and wind as the balloon rises to give a vertical structure of the storm.

They will also place portable weather stations at different points around town to get readings of wind, temperature and precipitation at different elevations.

The team will get in the eye of the storms with a souped-up plane equipped with Doppler radars that will give them more dynamic and three-dimensional readings.

Hanesiak and his team will monitor storms in Iqaluit during September and October of next year, the peak season for extreme storms in the area.

Hanesiak says this is due to the large amount of open water in the area following the summer melt. When the season turns and cold air meets the warmer temperatures and humidity of the water, conditions become ripe for storms.

Southeast Baffin is especially vulnerable to storms coming from the Labrador Sea as well as storms from the west, and the topography creates strong and dangerous winds.

Once the team better understands the physics of storms in the area, they will be able to make more accurate weather models.

Hanesiak thinks this especially important in an area with a growing population whose livelihoods and well-being are dramatically affected by the weather.

“It will give a forecaster a better understanding of how storms evolve and what they look like,” said Hanesiak. “With a better understanding of the winds, and other factors that might affect the storm, they can produce a more accurate forecast.”