For about twenty years the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC), through the Maritimes Weather Centre (MWC) in its Atlantic (MSC-A) region, has had the responsibility of advising the public when the combination of a high tide and an intense storm produces a risk of higher than normal water levels that may flood some coastal areas. The tides are easily predicted due to their periodic nature, but in the past no numerical model guidance has been available to forecast the additional "storm surge" component of sea level that is caused by the weather systems.

A team of oceanographers at Dalhousie University (Dal) has recently developed a storm surge forecast system for the east coast of Canada. The system is based on a two-dimensional barotropic model that is forced by atmospheric surface pressure and winds. As a collaboration within the Atlantic Environmental Prediction Research Initiative (AEPRI) this system has been transferred from Dal to MWC where it has been implemented as Canada’s first operational storm surge prediction system. The operational system is forced by three-hourly atmospheric surface pressure and wind provided by the MSC operational regional weather forecast model and produces storm surge predictions up to 48 hours in advance. The transfer included a preliminary evaluation (as a "hindcast" study) for the period September 1996 to February 1997 and another evaluation for the period October 18 to December 6 1999 when the system first started running at MWC. The system soon demonstrated its potential by producing very accurate forecasts for the January 21, 2000 severe storm surge event that caused considerable coastal flooding and damage in Prince Edward Island and eastern New Brunswick. Storm surge prediction specialists in MWC have since produced a storm surge alert system that automatically warns the forecasters when predicted coastal total water levels (surge plus tide) exceed predetermined site specific thresholds that have been chosen to reflect varying degrees of expected flood damage.

The system was "put to the test" by an event predicted for the afternoon of February 6, 2001 when stage 1 thresholds were forecast to be exceeded in some locations in PEI and eastern NB. MWC forecasters were able to successfully identify which areas would be flooded and alert the Emergency Measures Office (EMO) in PEI, who notified the affected areas and monitored the situation as it unfolded. As a result of this inter-agency cooperation, some property damage was avoided.