Forecast storms, warn people in time, and study how the atmosphere is changing.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $112,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $70,000 at the lower end to about $156,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 6 years after high school, on the usual route.
$28,000 to $52,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$112,000
Lower end
$70,000
Upper end
$156,000
Job Bank's national median is $53.94 an hour, about $112,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end ($33.89) and upper end ($75.12) are the bottom and top of the wage range for everyone in the group. Many forecasting jobs are with Environment and Climate Change Canada, which pays on a federal salary scale.
$54,240 to $70,972
Intern salary scale in Environment and Climate Change Canada's January 2024 hiring poster
You are hired as an intern and paid a salary during the forecaster training course, which is a real job, not school. The same poster lists $86,007 to $109,281 for fully trained meteorologists.
$56.47 an hour
The median in Nova Scotia, about $117,000 a year
Alberta is next at $55.48, and Newfoundland and Labrador is the lowest Job Bank reports, $44.05. Forecast centres run around the clock, and night and holiday shifts are paid a premium on top.
Roughly, all in
$28,000 to $52,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Both ends are the four year bachelor's degree multiplied out, 7,000 a year at the cheap end and 13,000 at the expensive end. A master's degree is normal for research roles but is usually funded with a stipend, so it is not in the numbers. Operational forecaster training after you are hired is paid by the employer and you are on salary while you do it. There is no licence to buy and no equipment of your own.
There is no licence to buy and no expensive equipment. The cost is the degree.
Federal pension and benefits
Environment and Climate Change Canada forecasters are covered by the federal public service plan.
Shift premiums
Paid extra for nights, weekends and statutory holidays.
Union coverage
Federal forecasters are unionized, with set pay steps.
Work that obviously matters
A tornado warning issued in time is a measurable thing you did.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A physics-heavy science degree, then employer training to become an operational forecaster.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Physics and calculus are the two that decide whether you can enter. Add computer science if you can.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Atmospheric science, meteorology, or physics with the required atmospheric courses. Only a handful of Canadian universities offer the full set.
Apply to a forecast employer
Months
Environment and Climate Change Canada is the main public employer, and hiring runs in waves. Private weather firms, airlines and energy companies also hire.
Operational forecaster training
Several months to a year
A paid, intensive in-house course before you are allowed to issue forecasts and warnings on your own.
Master's degree, for research or modelling
1 to 2 years
Needed if you want to work on climate research or numerical weather models rather than daily forecasting.
Physics
The atmosphere is fluid physics. There is no way around this one.
Calculus and advanced functions
Required for the degree and used constantly.
Computer science
Forecasting is built on running and interpreting numerical models.
Geography
Terrain, lakes and coasts drive local weather.
Meteorology is not a regulated profession in Canada. Anyone can call themselves a weather presenter. The Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society offers voluntary accreditation for meteorologists and weathercasters, which television stations and consulting clients use as a quality signal. For government forecasting jobs, what counts is the specific set of atmospheric physics courses in your degree, so check the required course list before you pick a program.
Ontario
York University and the University of Toronto.
Quebec
McGill University and Université du Québec à Montréal run atmospheric science programs.
West
University of British Columbia, University of Alberta, University of Victoria.
Prairies and Atlantic
University of Manitoba, Dalhousie University for the ocean and atmosphere side.
Quebec has a French-language meteorology degree and one of the two federal forecaster training centres, in Montreal, where training is given in French.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
With Secondary V physics, chemistry and math in the TS (Technical and Scientific) or SN (Science) sequence. These are the entry courses for the CEGEP (public college) science program.
Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies) (200.B1)
2 years
2 years at a CEGEP (public college). It covers the calculus, linear algebra, mechanics, electricity and magnetism, and modern physics the meteorology degree asks for. In English at Dawson College.
Bachelor's in atmospheric science
3 years
The UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) meteorology and climate concentration (7459): 90 credits, 3 years, in French, built to meet federal hiring rules. McGill's major in English has a forecasting stream.
Check the federal course list
During the degree
Environment and Climate Change Canada wants at least 10 physics and math term courses, plus dynamic, thermodynamic and synoptic meteorology and three more meteorology courses.
Hired as an intern meteorologist
About 10 to 11 months
Paid classroom training of 7 to 8 months, in French in Montreal or in English in Edmonton, then about 3 months of training on shift.
Physics, math and engineering graduates can add meteorology afterwards. McGill University offers a one year, 30 credit Diploma in Meteorology in English for science and engineering graduates. UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) has a 30 credit DESS (graduate diploma) in meteorology in French, 3 to 4 terms full time, for bachelor's holders with at least a 3.2 out of 4.3 average.
Pay is Environment and Climate Change Canada's published range. Language rules are from its 2024 hiring poster.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Public forecasting
Daily forecasts and severe weather warnings from a government storm prediction centre.
Aviation weather
Forecasts for airports and flight routes. Strict timing, high stakes.
Broadcast
Television and radio weather. Fewer jobs than people think, and it is as much performance as science.
Private industry
Energy traders, insurance companies, wind farms, ski hills and film crews all buy custom forecasts.
Programming
Python and shell scripting. Forecasters who can automate their own tools get the interesting projects.
Public speaking
Explaining a warning clearly under pressure is part of the job, even away from television.
French
Federal forecast positions often require both official languages.
Storm chasing or spotter training
Volunteer weather spotter networks give you real observing practice.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Come in, take a handover briefing from the forecaster going off shift, and read the overnight model runs and satellite images. Build the forecast, write the public wording, and watch radar for anything developing. If severe weather builds, everything else stops and you are issuing warnings on a deadline measured in minutes. Answer calls from emergency managers, airlines or reporters. Hand over to the next shift and go home, often at a strange hour.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
On June 29, 2021, Lytton, British Columbia reached 49.6 degrees Celsius, nearly 24 degrees above normal and the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.
In 2021, temperatures in Canada ranged from that 49.6 degree record down to minus 51.9, a spread of about 100 degrees in a single year.
Environment and Climate Change Canada issues weather warnings for tornadoes, blizzards, freezing rain and storm surge. The warning, not the daily forecast, is the part people plan their lives around.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Earth and weather first, then the rest of the field. See every career in science and environment.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
Tell us about this page. A person reads every message.
No email app on this device? Use Gmail instead: report a mistake in Gmail or say what you like in Gmail.