Sweater weather or Ice Station Zebra?
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Turns out, much like the rest of Canada, the GTA and southern Ontario can likely expect a warmer-than-normal winter, according to Enviornment Canada’s winter forecast.
For the months of December, January and February, “above-normal temperatures are strongly favoured across Northern Ontario, Northern Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nunavut,” meteorologist Gina Ressler said Wednesday.
“For the rest of Canada, there’s a slightly elevated chance of above normal temperatures.”
Ressler added that “above-normal precipitation is slightly to moderately favoured across western, central and northwestern Canada. And part of the high Arctic. Once again, this pattern is mainly favoured in December.”
Environment Canada research scientist Bill Merryfield said a warming El Nino, or its opposite, La Nina, are among the biggest influences on Canada’s winter climate.
“La Nina tends to bring colder than normal winters to Canada, especially in the west, and a slight tendency for higher than normal precipitation in the west and around the Great Lakes,” he said.
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“Recently, we had three straight La Nina winters, followed by a strong El Nino last winter. Predictions for this year have pointed toward a weak La Nina.”
The briefing was timely given Toronto dealt with its first snowfall of about 5 centimetres on Wednesday. Cottage country was walloped by 1 1/2 metres of snow last weekend.
“Typically, for Toronto and the GTA, you’re not really in an ideal snowbelt location to receive those heavy amounts of snow,” said Ressler.
“Typically, through the winter, the lake effect season will start ending as the lakes ice over. So right now we’re kind of in prime-time for lake effect snow … we have open water and actually the waters are running a little bit warmer than normal because of the warm summer and fall that we’ve had so that even adds to some of the moisture and instability.”
While the Toronto area will likely be spared huge hits of the white stuff, Alberta Clippers or Colorado or Texas lows can still leave us shovelling, added Ressler.
“Those kind of storm tracks that could come up and affect us in southern Ontario in general (but) it’s impossible to predict when those storms are going hit this far in advance,” she added.
The massive weekend snowfall in cottage country forced Gravenhurst officials to declare a state of emergency. Parts of Hwy. 11 was shut down Saturday night, with many vehicles stuck on the road until snow could be cleared on Sunday.