Weather Beacon
The building is perhaps best known for its weather beacon, whose colour codes provide summarized weather forecasts at a glance. The information is updated four times every day by Environment Canada's Weather Centre at Toronto Pearson International Airport. The top light shows:
- Steady green = clear
- Steady red = cloudy
- Flashing red = rain
- Flashing white = snow
The white lights along the support tower show:
- Lights running up = warmer
- Lights running down = cooler
- Steady = steady temperature
The beacon was the first of its kind to appear in Canada and was built at a cost of $25,000. The top of the beacon tower stands 321 feet (97.8 m) above University Avenue and, when completed on August 9, 1951, made the structure the third-highest in Toronto, after the Canadian Bank of Commerce Building and the Royal York Hotel.
Read more about this topic: Canada Life Building
Famous quotes containing the words weather and/or beacon:
“This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh, and ply;”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“Hm, the beacon of the press. In the hell to which all journalists must descend when they die, Mr. Wiggam, we shall sit at red hot desks with quills of fire in our hand and spend eternity on eternity writing about the salubrious weather of that region. Let us serve our apprenticeship here thoroughly and intelligently.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)