“Our models show that for most of the country, we can be labeled ‘warmer than normal’ from coast to coast,” Dave Phillips, a senior climatologist at Environment Canada, told CTV News Channel on Sunday. “Certainly for most of Canada, in the future, it will be better weather for beer, beach weather and I think Canadians appreciate such a summer.” We are already seeing some of this warmer weather across Canada. There are currently warnings of heat in southern Manitoba, especially in areas of northern Ontario near the Manitoba border. The Manitoba Marathon was scheduled to take place this Sunday, but shortly after the start of the race, temperatures soared above 30 degrees and organizers called for a halt due to safety concerns. Manitoba “wants to dry up,” Phillips said, as the province has battled floods recently, “and has begun to do so.” But the heat jump in this area right now is dramatic. “Winnipeg could see 37 degrees today, which is 13 degrees warmer than it normally would be, and I think warmer than at any time last year,” Phillips said. Throughout the spring, Canada has seen a wide range of weather conditions. “Last week, we saw a total of 30 cm of snow in the Rockies, we saw really threatening rain in parts of southern Alberta […] it was somewhat good news for farmers and growers. And definitely here in the east, about a month ago we had this windstorm […] “It was one of the most expensive storms in Canadian history, and then last week we had storms and almost accidents and Montreal had a lot of rain and stagnant water,” Phillips said. “Well, we’ve had our share of weird, wild and extreme weather, but I think overall, this spring has been a bit on the cool, wet side for most parts of Canada.” He added that if you look at the world, Canada was “one of the coldest regions in the world” in the first half of 2022. This prepares us for a warmer summer. But one of the big extremes for this stormy summer is British Columbia, he said. “The models have been improved a bit to give them more summer than they looked a week ago,” he said. “But [it looks] as if it were to be somewhat seasonal, like the weather of the golden age: neither too hot nor too cold. “ Last year, BC had one of the worst wildfires the province has ever seen. By then, in 2021, there had been 277 fires in the province, compared to the 152 fires that have occurred so far in 2022. More than 8,700 square kilometers of land were burned in BC. in 2021. In addition, a dangerous “hot dome” in late June and early July 2021 caused four times as many deaths in the area during this period, with 619 dying from extreme heat. A cooler summer this year will probably be a welcome change. Phillps added that if things warmed up too quickly in BC, we could face the opposite of fires: floods. “I’m worried that if it gets too hot, too fast, then they will have some real flood situations, because they have very high snow in the middle and higher altitudes in the mountains, and if you go from mud to sweat, suddenly, this snow will melt, and “You have rivers that will drown and streams, and there can certainly be floods,” he said. This forecast for a warmer summer for Canada as a whole, with BC looking cooler than the rest of the country, echoes the official summer forecast of The Weather Network, which was published in late May and predicted warmer weather with a chance of thunderstorms. Phillips noted that whenever there is high heat and associated humidity, we have the conditions to create a storm. “We certainly do not have forecasts for a season ahead of the storms,” he said. “We just know that when the hot weather is accompanied by high humidity, storms will break out in Canada – so always watch out for the sky.” It seems that while summer will come with some great beach days across the country, it might be wise to have a backup plan in case of rain.
