How data is determined for the Canada thunderstorm season summaries
Severe thunderstorm warning and tornado warning days:
In case you're wondering, no, I do not look at Environment Canada's warnings page 24/7 to see if there are severe thunderstorm warnings. Each morning, I spend a few minutes going through the warnings archive here to determine when warnings were issued. This method is much faster and less time-consuming. I use this archive here to know which community equates to which warning box. Honestly, after a while I get so used to the names of the communities and which warning boxes they belong that I do not even need to look at the archive, saving time.
Unconfirmed/confirmed tornadoes:
It's hard for me to give 1 single source that I use to get this data, because I get it from a large variety of sources. Twitter photos/reports (reliable ones), Environment Canada reports/confirmations, media outlets, weather blogs, you name it, I get the data from anywhere (obviously, I wont just trust any report; I will use my common sense to judge that). If you have a question about where I got a specific data point, please let me know in the comments on my blog. (Note: Environment Canada is my main source for tornado data)
Thunderstorm days per city:
Thunderstorm days are determined using METAR, which are records of all the observations at each station across Canada. These records include observations in between hourly observations. As a result, not a single thunderstorm day is missed. The METAR reports are retrieved from two main sources: A Weather Moment METAR Viewer, and ogimet.com. Keyboard shortcuts enable me to retrieve the data for 42 select cities fairly rapidly.
At the height of the thunderstorm season, I gather the data every 4 days at AWM's metar viewer which takes up to half an hour to gather data for 42 cities. In less active months, I gather the data once a month at ogimet.com, which takes 30-60 minutes to gather the data for 42 cities for the entire month. In the winter, I typically only gather the data once in December and then don't do so again until March or April.
In case you're wondering, no, I do not look at Environment Canada's warnings page 24/7 to see if there are severe thunderstorm warnings. Each morning, I spend a few minutes going through the warnings archive here to determine when warnings were issued. This method is much faster and less time-consuming. I use this archive here to know which community equates to which warning box. Honestly, after a while I get so used to the names of the communities and which warning boxes they belong that I do not even need to look at the archive, saving time.
Unconfirmed/confirmed tornadoes:
It's hard for me to give 1 single source that I use to get this data, because I get it from a large variety of sources. Twitter photos/reports (reliable ones), Environment Canada reports/confirmations, media outlets, weather blogs, you name it, I get the data from anywhere (obviously, I wont just trust any report; I will use my common sense to judge that). If you have a question about where I got a specific data point, please let me know in the comments on my blog. (Note: Environment Canada is my main source for tornado data)
Thunderstorm days per city:
Thunderstorm days are determined using METAR, which are records of all the observations at each station across Canada. These records include observations in between hourly observations. As a result, not a single thunderstorm day is missed. The METAR reports are retrieved from two main sources: A Weather Moment METAR Viewer, and ogimet.com. Keyboard shortcuts enable me to retrieve the data for 42 select cities fairly rapidly.
At the height of the thunderstorm season, I gather the data every 4 days at AWM's metar viewer which takes up to half an hour to gather data for 42 cities. In less active months, I gather the data once a month at ogimet.com, which takes 30-60 minutes to gather the data for 42 cities for the entire month. In the winter, I typically only gather the data once in December and then don't do so again until March or April.