For the past six decades a life insurance company has been giving Torontonians a weather update on their downtown location.
Not content with being one of the top life insurance companies in this country, Canada Life is also a meteorologist to Torontonians.
Since the early 1950s, the beacon at the top of the University Ave. building has turned the Toronto forecast into an easy-to-read light pattern which is updated four times a day:
Flashing red: rain
Flashing white: snow
Solid red: cloudy
Solid green: clear
There’s a strip of lights running up and down the tower communicating the temperature – when the lights are running up the city is warming up, down and it’s cooling. Steady lights mean a steady temperature.
In this day and age of cell phones it could be argued that a weather beacon is archaic. But in the middle of a snow storm it’s much easier to look up at the big city than down at the tiny screen of a smartphone.
Since the early 1950s, the beacon at the top of the University Ave. building has turned the Toronto forecast into an easy-to-read light pattern which is updated four times a day:
Flashing red: rain
Flashing white: snow
Solid red: cloudy
Solid green: clear
There’s a strip of lights running up and down the tower communicating the temperature – when the lights are running up the city is warming up, down and it’s cooling. Steady lights mean a steady temperature.
In this day and age of cell phones it could be argued that a weather beacon is archaic. But in the middle of a snow storm it’s much easier to look up at the big city than down at the tiny screen of a smartphone.
