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Canada's national weather service is going mobile.
The celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Meteorological Service of Canada, which joined the federal Environment department 40 years ago, the service is launching a mobile website that can be reached by smartphones.
The mobile Weatheroffice will make weather forecasts and warnings accessible to Canadians wherever they find themselves, Environment Minister Peter Kent said Friday in Toronto at an event held to mark the anniversary
"We provide Canadians with weather information through Weatheradio, and through automated telephone answering devices. We also serve over one-million users a day with their local weather conditions and warnings on our website, weatheroffice.gc.ca, and through the website's Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds," Mr. Kent said.
"With improved fingertip access to our comprehensive Weatheroffice website's most popular features such as the city pages with current weather conditions, forecasts, alerts, and radar images, Canadians can stay weather aware, and weather prepared," he said.
During its 140-year history, the research conducted by the Meteorological Service has led to the development of the Ultraviolet Index and the Air Quality Health Index. It has also adopted technologies like Doppler weather radar in order to help better predict and detect severe weather, and provide Canadians with advanced warning.
Other weather services, like the Weather Network, have had smartphone applications for some time.
But the federal government has recently embraced the technology. The department of Canadian Heritage recently introduced a smartphone to help those who wished to keep tabs on the royal visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.