Lester B. Pearson International Airport - CYYZ - ATC/Weather Radar
N 43° 40.364 W 079° 38.850
17T E 609030 N 4836413
A radar dome at CYYZ Lester B. Pearson International Airport.
Waymark Code: WM9JP1
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 08/26/2010
Views: 17
This weather radar is a very specific radar, and is used in combination with the Environment Canada Doppler Radar 80km away in King City.
This radar uses a fan sweep instead of a pencil sweep so it can not identify precipitation at specific elevations. It has been criticized as not providing enough information to ATC controllers. A suggestion to upgrade to Doppler has been made in a safety report
From Transportation Safety Board of Canada report on the 2005 Air France crash, we learn about the weather radar here:
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visit link)
"The radar system in use in the Toronto ACC was procured as part of the radar modernization program (RAMP) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It employs monopulse technology to measure azimuth accuracy. The manufacturer is Raytheon Canada Limited, and the model number is RYC8405. The positional accuracy of the radar is 1/64 nm in range and the azimuth accuracy near the threshold of the runways is approximately one sigma error 0.07º, and at 50 nm is three sigma error 0.15º.
The displays used in the ACC, including the Terminal Speciality, are called radar situation displays (RSit) and they are part of the radar data processing system (RDPS). In the tower, controllers use a display called the NAV CANADA auxiliary radar display system (NARDS). Both RSit and NARDS were produced by NAV CANADA.
The primary surveillance radar (PSR) weather channel used by the Toronto ACC is not a true weather radar because it uses a vertical fan beam instead of a pencil beam. The detected rainfall intensity, therefore, is an integration of precipitation for all altitudes. The detected intensity depends on the height and intensity of the weather system. The ground-clutter level also affects the filter used and, therefore, affects the intensity of the detected precipitation."
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Posted co-ordinates are for a trailhead where you can observe the radar dome, since the dome itself is within the boundaries of an international airport.