J. S. Marshall Radar Observatory - History

History

In 1862, a first Weather Observatory was built by McGill University. The instruments were donated by Dr. Charles Smallwood (MD), who had personally taken weather data with them since 1840. This station became one of the first in the weather station network set up after the telegraph became ubiquitous.

In 1943, "Project Stormy Weather" was assigned to J.S. Marshall by the Department of National Defence. The aim was to find a use for noise in radar echoes that had proved to be from weather. Marshall and his doctoral student Walter Palmer later received recognition for their work on the drop size distribution in mid-latitude rain that led to the rain rate relation to radar reflectivity (Z-R relation). Following World War II, Marshall and R.H. Douglas formed the "Stormy Weather Group" at McGill University and continued their work.

Different radars were used by the Stormy Weather Group to research the characteristics of precipitation at Dawson College, continuing the tradition of meteorology at McGill. It was decided to build a new facility in 1968 in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, on the western tip of Montreal Island and to transfer research activity from Dawson College to this facility. This new observatory was later renamed the J.S. Marshall Radar Observatory in honor of its founder.