By Samantha Maciag

Environment Canada explains radar problems

Jul 28, 2011 | 12:04 PM

Environment Canada is now answering for issues with the radar system out of Bethune,which looks for severe weather over southern Saskatchewan.

Up until May, the Bethune station was working more than 95 per cent of the time for the eleven months prior. However, in May, there were issues that caused it to cease operating.

“It was down twice in May for two periods of a few days and then it was down for another two days for maintenance at the end of the month,” said Stephen Holden with Environment Canada.

Holden says because of that, the radar was not working properly 40 per cent of the time. Then there were the July outtages, like last weekend.

“The radar electronics overheated because of the air conditioning failure. The system was restarted on Friday the 22nd and it promptly overheated again.”

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After checking in with the regional storm centre and determining no severe weather was coming in, Environment Canada got it back up and running on Monday. Holden insists that if severe weather was spotted via the surrounding radars or sattellite, they'd have dispatched someone immediately.

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