Victoria Ahearn, THE CANADIAN PRESS

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TORONTO - Suzanne Leonard has been asked to deliver impromptu forecasts in some unusual settings during her decade as a broadcast journalist with the Weather Network.

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THE CANADIAN PRESS/ HO

Suzanne Leonard, a broadcast journalist with The Weather Network, which is marking its 20th anniversary with a series of special on-air reports this month.

"I've had not one but two separate occasions of being in the depths of the Algonquin wilderness, portaging my canoe, and I've had somebody stop me on the portage trail and they recognized me," Leonard says with a laugh, noting that despite the odd circumstances, the fans still wanted the scoop on the skies.

"People are crazy about the weather. It makes them crazy, but they're crazy about it as well," concludes Leonard, who hosts the network's midday show.

The Weather Network, based in Oakville, Ont., is marking its 20th anniversary with a series of special on-air reports this month.

Leonard says she gets stopped on the street and asked about the climate "all the time."

"Canadians love talking about the weather," she says.

If the online fan tributes to the network are anything to go by, Canadians are indeed enraptured with atmospheric conditions.

On YouTube, fervent viewers have posted hundreds of forecast clips from the national meteorological channel, which has a French counterpart, Montreal-based MeteoMedia, that broadcasts to Quebec and some Maritime provinces.

Some YouTube clips even show fans strumming the theme song for the network's local forecasts on their guitars.

Then there's the plethora of Facebook groups devoted to TWN (as it's affectionately referred to by many), not to mention the countless phone calls, emails, photos and letters it receives from fans.

Over 9.5 million Canadians tune in to the Weather Network/MeteoMedia on average at some point each week, up from 4.6 million in 1992, the network says. In winter, the number sometimes climbs to over 12.6 million viewers.

While the popularity of the 24-hour operation - run by Pelmorex Media Inc. - has grown tremendously, it's the evolution in its technology that employees are most proud of.

"The biggest difference I've seen is in the quality of our forecasts," says network meteorologist Chris Scott, who once dressed as "partly cloudy" for Halloween, with fake clouds on half of his outfit.

"We now are much more accurate, especially in the long-range forecasting, than what we were 10 years ago. ... Twenty years ago our forecasts for the next day were as accurate as now our forecasts for five days are."

When it debuted - amid some criticism that there wasn't a market for a 24-hour weather service - the Weather Network/MeteoMedia provided local forecasts on TV for about 600 communities.

Now, the networks deliver local forecasts to nearly 1,200 communities via TV, web, computer desktop applications, satellite radio and wireless platforms. Overall, the Weather Network/MeteoMedia is available in 10.6 millions homes across the country.

"I've got family in England and overseas and that kind of blows their mind: 'What do you mean there's a channel devoted to weather? All the time? 24-7?"' says Leonard.

"You break it down for them and explain, 'Well, there's a national forecast, a local forecast, weather for travellers, there's an international, there's some weather news ... and you can see that the wheels are turning and they say, 'Oh, I get it."'

"Then when you explain the size of the country and how we have ... five, six completely different climate areas ... people get it, so there really is a need for it," says Leonard, adding that the increasing concern over the environment adds to its appeal.

TWN and MeteoMedia take data from a pair of supercomputers - at the Canadian Meteorological Centre in Montreal and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction near Washington, D.C. - that are fed by satellites, radar, buoys in the ocean and weather stations at airports.

A team of over 40 meteorologists analyzes that data and relays it to the on-air staff.

Of course, they can't be right all the time, and Scott says fans are "very understanding" on that front.

"You make a forecast, a good forecast, and people will phone our storm line to tell us what's going on and it's that message of: 'You know what? Great job ... what you said made a difference in my day,"' says Scott, who was co-anchor of the prime-time show from 2002 to 2006.

"It's those moments that make you realize all the studying, all the work, all the teamwork pays off in the end."