Friday, December 11, 2015

Record high for Montreal

It will remain very mild in eastern Canada through Christmas Day. The storm track will keep the colder air and snow form the central Great Lakes west. (AccuWeather)
Trudeau Airport reached 7.2C (45F) on Wednesday breaking a record established in 1966. As an encore the city reached 9.9C (50F) on Thursday breaking a 63 year old record of 9.4C from 1952. Today will likely be another record breaker as we are forecasting a high of 11C (52F). The record to break is 9.4C, also from 1952. Clouds and perhaps a few showers will be around most of the day along with windy conditions. Southwest winds ahead of a weather system moving across the Great Lakes, will reach up to 50km/h.

Looking ahead we can expect a mild weekend with mostly cloudy skies. A period of rain is possible to start next week with perhaps some freezing rain Monday night. I am not expecting any snow at this time as it will remain very mild. Above freezing temperatures are likely in Montreal right up to at least December 20th. The snow drought continues with only 2.2cm measured at Trudeau Airport for the season. Winter will try to make a comeback in southern Quebec and Ontario between Christmas and New Years with perhaps some snow and colder weather occurring. However, it has looked this way in the extended forecast before this year, only to have the milder pattern win out as we drew closer to the actual date. Of note, if the daytime highs remain above freezing every day in the month of December, this will be the first time this has occurred in Montreal since weather records began at McGill University in 1871.

3 comments:

Rene said...

Why is the weather so unseasonably warm?

Rene said...

Why is the weather so unseasonably warm?

SB said...

In a simple explanation, El Nino, a warming of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America, has altered the weather patterns over North America. This in turn has pushed the jet stream further north trapping the really cold air across far northern Canada. Until the pattern alters, we are in for this mild weather. We may see some movement of the cold air southward by the the middle of January.