One of Nova Scotia's 2 weather radars is being replaced

One of Nova Scotia's two weather radar stations is down and out, but not for long.

The Marion Bridge station in Cape Breton is being replaced as a part of a $95-million project that will see the replacement of Environment and Climate Change Canada's 31 weather radars.

German firm Selex ES GmbH was awarded the contract in 2016 and work began in 2017.

Pat Wong, special advisor on the project for Environment Canada, said the new radars will be a vast improvement.

"It has something called dual polarization, so it means that when it looks at each rain droplet, it sees them in two dimensions, it sends both a horizontal pulse and vertical pulse, so we can tell the actual shape of the target," said Wong.

"It lets the meteorologist distinguish between things like heavy rain or hail or snow and it also lets us see non-meteorological targets such as bugs and birds or even tornado debris."

According to Wong, most of Canada's radars were put in place around 2000. Marion Bridge, for example, was erected in 2002.

Since then, technology has changed a lot. The new radar will have a wider reach and will cycle at a rate of six minutes instead of 10.

"This radar has a higher power, so it can actually see nearer storms to storms far away, which is really important because it lets the forecasters see into deep-weather storms," said Wong. "It's especially important when things like hurricanes are approaching."

The Marion Bridge station's tower has been completed and the dome and radar are now being installed.

Wong said they expect to start calibrating and collecting data by mid-August. It will take another month before data is publicly available, but meteorologists will have access before then.

The project began in 2017 and it's expected the 31 radars won't be all replaced until 2023.

Environment Canada's second Nova Scotia weather radar is in Gore, about 50 kilometres north-northwest of Halifax.