1. Forecast Development at the Canadian Space Weather Forecast Centre
Ljubomir Nikolic
Canadian Hazards Information Service
Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, Canada

2. Canadian Space Weather Forecast Centre (CSWFC)
1974: Magnetic forecast service was established
13 March 1989 magnetic storm
1995: Automated forecast system
Magnetic activity zones and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) geomagnetic observatories
Regional Warning Centre of the International
Space Environment Service (ISES).
Geomagnetic Laboratory
H.-L. Lam, Space Weather 9, S05004 (2011)

3. Canadian Space Weather Forecast Centre: Current state
Inputs
Internal: Geomagnetic observatories, Riometers, F10.7
External: SWPC, SIDC, NASA, GONG, etc.
Forecast
Automated
Forecast.
Every 15 min
spaceweather.gc.ca
Twitter feed
Multi-Agency Situational Awareness S.
Objectives and requirements, IT platform, etc.

4. Forecast development example:
Solar wind forecast based on Wang-Sheeley-Arge (WSA) model
WSA solar wind forecast issues in the current solar cycle:
M.A. Reiss et al., Space Weather 14, 495 (2016)
P. Riley et al., Space Weather 13, 154 (2015)
Possible improvements: Different radius RS for the “source-surface” in the PFSS model of the coronal magnetic field [see e.g. C.O. Lee et al., Solar Phys 269, 367 (2011) ]
To derive empirical solar wind relation as a function of RS is not an easy task!

5. Forecast development challenges
General challenges, e.g.:
Data
Gap between research and operations
Specific challenges, e.g.:
IT Security (very important)
Government IT consolidation  data centres
Space Weather against
WEB & transformation  canada.ca
Open government (data, science)
Research and Operations - program alignment

6. SW forecast system (re)development – work in progress
Forecast system works 24/7, but the SW forecaster is not on duty 24h. [However, if the duty forecaster concludes that an event is significant, the event monitoring and reporting to the emergency management would run 24h.]
Data centres are not at the same location as
the SW forecast centre.

7. SW forecast system (re)development – work in progress
Requirements/Suggestions :
Highly automated and reliable.
Have a high degree of portability.
Low dependency on other parts of the IT infrastructure.
Modular design for maximum flexibility and reusability.
Efficiently assimilate data sets and use data quality algorithms.
Ability to handle errors and lack of data.
Timely delivery of outputs.
High quality graphical outputs.
User oriented outputs.
Etc.
[see e.g. E.A. Araujo-Pradere, Space Weather 7, S10006 (2009)].

8. SW forecast system (re)development – work in progress
Concept of the system work at the data processing (forecast) level.

9. Summary
Magnetic observatories and riometer network
CSWFC is developing new products, such as: solar wind forecast, data from riometer network, TEC maps, GIC simulator, etc.
Example – solar wind (WSA) forecast: adjusting the source-surface radius can improve the forecast.
Over the last 20 years complexity of our SW forecast system has grown.
Security and IT consolidation are reasons for changes to the Government of Canada IT model. The new centralized approach imposes certain restrictions on diversity and management of IT solutions, and poses a challenge to the current model of SW forecast services.
To enable forecast improvements with better integration of research and operations in an environment which is driven by IT security and consolidation, the CSWFC is undertaking work to redesign and modernize the forecast system. The new concept should provide an efficient modular system which is easier to maintain.
Discussions about the forecast system future between scientists, operations, management and the government IT service, are ongoing. There are challenges, but also opportunities.