Lack of weather radar affects work of firefighters in northern Manitoba, emergency co-ordinator says

By Mike Arsenault
CBC News
April 29, 2026
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada West

Extreme weather events in northern Manitoba are challenging to navigate, and the lack of weather radar sites in the northern part of the province only adds to that challenge, experts say. “We experienced that a lot last summer during our forest fire,” said Mike Funk, the emergency co-ordinator for the City of Flin Flon. “We would get reports from Environment Canada, [saying] ‘We’re expecting rainfall,’ and they were great at predicting the time that it would hit [elsewhere]. But by the time it got close to your area, nothing happened.” Last spring, Flin Flon, more than 600 kilometers northwest of Winnipeg, was nearly encircled by wildfires. The city of roughly 5,000 was evacuated for weeks. Funk said a weather radar station in the north would give his community a clearer picture of what type of weather they could expect.

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