Record breaking heat is being felt across the country Southern Ontario Friday’s temperature was above normal Season Global News meteorologist Anthony Farnell says the pattern is expected to continue through the first week of January.
Cities with new record high temperatures include London, Hamilton, toronto and Ottawa, Farnell said.
Toronto broke the old record of 10.2c set three years earlier.
“What makes this summer even more incredible is that it comes just one week after a historic blizzard that shut down airports and shut down major highways,” Farnell said.
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The wind chill also reached -20’s and -30’s due to the system moving in last week.
“It was almost as if the monstrous storm used up all the cold Arctic air that was blanketing North America,” Farnell said.
“A better explanation has to do with a larger pattern change occurring in the Northern Hemisphere. The Arctic blockage that pushed cold air into the mid-latitudes for most of December was replaced with a stronger polar vortex over the North Pole. Was.
This has bound cold air together and created a strong jet stream to the south, Farnell said, bringing very heavy rain and strong winds to the west coast.
“The rest of us are benefiting from the cool Pacific breeze that made it all the way to the East Coast,” he said.
Farnell said warmer-than-normal weather will continue in southern Ontario through the first week of January, with high temperatures in the upper single digits and mainly above freezing.
“This, combined with several days of rain, will melt most of the remaining snow on the ground. Some localized flooding is possible in areas that still have significant snow,” he warned.
But the warm temperatures will not last long, he said, and there are indications that very cold and snowy weather will return, though not until the second fortnight of January.
“Until then, make the most of this very unusually long mild spell,” Farnell said.
Temperatures were warmer than normal in southern Ontario on Friday.
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