Weatheradio Canada (French: Radiométéo Canada) was an automated 24-hour network of VHF FM weather radio stations based in Canada. Owned and operated by Environment and Climate Change Canada's Meteorological Service of Canada division, it was one of the two weather radio systems across North America alongside NOAA Weather Radio in the United States. Weatheradio Canada was headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, and was broadcast in both official languages (English and French) from 230 sites across the country. Weatheradio Canada, as well as Environment Canada's weather telephone service Hello Weather, used Nuance Communications text-to-speech voices. Starcaster Text-To-Speech, owned by STR-SpeechTech Ltd, was used from 1994 to 2022. In February 2026, Environment Canada announced the decommissioning of the service effective on March 16th of that year. All transmitters were shut down during the early morning hours of March 31, 2026.
History
In 1976, Environment Canada's Weatheradio service was launched and expanded to 30 locations in roughly 10 years. In the early-1990s, increased government investment permitted major expansion of the network to its largest size of 230 sites. In most locations, the service broadcast on one of seven specially-allocated VHF radio frequencies, audible only on dedicated "weather band" receivers or any VHF radio capable of receiving 10 kHz bandwidth FM signals centred on these assigned channels, which were located within the larger "public service band". The radio frequencies used by Weatheradio Canada were the same as those used by its American counterpart, NOAA Weather Radio (whose parent agency, the U.S. National Weather Service, is also a partner with the Meteorological Service of Canada) . From 2004 to its decommissioning, the service used Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) alerting technology to disseminate severe weather alerts. In the late 2010s, Environment Canada indicated that it would, in the future, add other hazard and civil emergency information (such as natural disasters, technological accidents, Amber alerts and terrorist attacks) to Weatheradio broadcasts. Such enhancements never came to fruition. In some locations, primarily national parks, provincial parks and remote communities with little or no local media service, a transmitter operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation carried the service on a standard AM or FM broadcast frequency. As of August 2007, most of these AM and FM transmitters were unlicensed by the CRTC under a special licence exemption granted to low-power non-commercial broadcasters. In September 2020, Environment and Climate Change Canada began soliciting feedback on possible decommissioning of 48 of its 230 transmitters. ECCC stated that the transmitters were predominantly located in areas of overlapping coverage and where alternate methods of access (such as cell phones and the Internet) were available. On May 26, 2021, through Required Weekly Tests sent over the network, ECCC announced Weatheradio Canada's transition into its new voice technology system, after 27 years using the Starcaster voices. The new voice used for the system was Nuance Tom from Nuance Communications, a newer version of the old NOAA Weather Radio voice used prior to 2016. This transition began on June 1st of that year, and while supposed to end on New Year's Eve of 2021, some stations held out into summer 2022 before making the switch. On August 19, 2022, an announcement was sent on 8 transmitters in the network regarding the impending decommission of said transmitters within the next 6 months. The 8 transmitters announced for decommissioning were: Cooking Lake, AB; Saskatoon, SK; Orillia, ON; Brockville, ON; Fredericton, NB; Perth-Andover, NB; Aspen-Melrose, NS and Grand Falls, NL. Of these, Saskatoon and Orillia were spared while the remainder were discontinued.
On February 23, 2026, ECCC announced that as part of the federal government's Comprehensive Expenditure Review, Weatheradio Canada and Hello Weather would be decommissioned nationwide effective three weeks later on March 16. The agency cited rising maintenance costs as the main factor. Continuous marine broadcasts, operated by the Canadian Coast Guard for maritime interests, remained in service. On March 16, Weatheradio Canada broadcast a repeated announcement informing listeners that the service had been permanently shut down. On March 31, 2026, all weather radio stations across the country were shut down.
Frequencies Weatheradio Canada signals were transmitted using FM (10 kHz bandwidth), with band spacing of 25 kHz. These transmissions covered areas in around a 80-kilometre (50-mile) radius from the station, but this all depended on terrain, weather quality, and the antenna height above ground. It was estimated that over 90 percent of Canadians lived within range of a Weatheradio transmitter. The service used multiple frequencies:
162.400 MHz 162.425 MHz 162.450 MHz 162.475 MHz 162.500 MHz 162.525 MHz 162.550 MHz At selected locations, low power broadcasts without the alert tone were transmitted on the regular FM or AM band. A Weatheradio receiver was not required to hear these broadcasts.
Programming
Weather information was broadcast in both official languages (English, then French). Prior to June 2021, broadcasts in Quebec were in the opposite order. The language order became uniform after new systems were installed. Weather alert broadcasts were inserted within the normal playlist. Wind and wave marine forecasts are broadcast on a regular basis on transmitters located near marine zones. However, these and other forms of marine forecasts were more conveniently heard on the Canadian Coast Guard's continuous marine broadcasts, which (except for British Columbia) are not broadcast on weather-band frequencies. Weather broadcasts also included the UV index for the forecast day, and for the following day. The Air Quality Health Index forecast was broadcast at the end of the broadcast cycle for cities in the station's service area.
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