After a slow start to the season, summer finally hit its stride during the month of July. Will summer end strong or will fall weather arrive soon? To see the month of August, please read on.
But first, here’s a look back at what we saw in Canada during the month of July.
Much of the country saw near-normal temperatures (indicated in white in the chart below) or warmer-than-normal temperatures (indicated by varying shades of orange and red in the chart below). Most of northern Canada was exceptionally warm and eastern Newfoundland has also been very warm, but at least we haven’t seen the widespread dangerous heat we saw last summer.
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During July, colder than normal temperatures were limited to areas from northern Ontario to Labrador. This contrasts with June, when cooler-than-normal temperatures dominated most of Canada.
The early August pattern will resemble what we’ve seen over the past few weeks, but with a couple of notable differences.
Warm weather is expected to dominate from the Prairies south to Atlantic Canada. However, a cooler pattern is expected across much of northern Canada and the proximity of this cooler weather poses a risk to the forecast. Cooler weather could push south at times and briefly break the heat in southern areas.
Also, we expect BC to return to the cooler pattern that dominated most of the summer before the heat wave that arrived in the last week of July.
As we move into the second week of August, expect the focus of the hottest weather to begin moving west. This will bring temperatures closer to seasonal across Atlantic Canada with some snaps of cooler weather.
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For Ontario and Quebec, we have the possibility of a longer break from the heat in mid-August with a period of cooler weather that could last 5-10 days. However, this will not signal an early end to the summer weather as we expect hot weather to spread across the region again sometime in late August and September.
In the prairies, hot weather looks set to dominate in mid-to-late August, especially in the southern parts of the region. However, we are likely to see some breaks from the heat at times.
Across BC, periods of warmer weather are expected in mid-to-late August, but we don’t expect temperatures to warm as much as we’ve seen in the last week of July.
In northern Canada, summer isn’t over yet, but the overall pattern looks much cooler than what we saw in the first half of the season.
While August will bring a changing pattern at times, this is how we expect the final numbers to look for the month as a whole.
For most of Canada, this means very warm weather is still in abundance, with near-normal or above-normal temperatures expected for August.
However, with cooler-than-normal temperatures waiting in the wings across much of northern Canada, there will be some significant breaks from the heat and even the chance to take quick photos of cooler weather that would give a hint of next season