Canadian Aviation Weather Online

One thing that NavCanada has been working on which I tend to use a fair amount is the public availability of aviation weather information. Eric wrote in recently to ask me a question about whether pireps were available online, but I couldn't find which article his message was attached to, so I figured I'd address it here. And actually, for those who are interested in Canadian weather information and aren't aware of the website, it's a pretty good resource available for free on the internet, so it would be a worthwhile post anyway.

So here it is:

NavCanada's Flight Planning Webpage

The screen that comes up will have a number of buttons which are largely self-explanatory. Those who are reading this are likely to know a few location identifiers to help get the weather reports they need, though it is possible to enter a place name for a look up. Given that I know all the ones that I want to use, I have never used the location lookup before so I don't know how useful it is. You can't get US weather and reports here, but Canadian PIREPS are available through this interface. NOTAMs and many other products such as weather radar images are linked through here as well. It's quite a useful site for weather watchers like myself, but certainly more useful for those who are planning flights.