Canadians have reason to blame Russia for the prolonged deep freeze that’s settled over central and eastern parts of the Great White North.

Cold wind from Russia’s frigid Siberian region has swept into Canada and plunged parts of the country into near record-setting low temperatures, while dumping up to 250 centimetres of snow on parts of the Maritimes since January.

Southern and Central Ontario remain under extreme cold weather alerts, as does a large section of southeastern Quebec. Weather experts say the cold is due to a temporary, but lengthy shift in the jet stream that’s drawing Arctic air from Siberia and the North West Territories down over Central and Eastern Canada.

Brett Anderson, a senior meteorologist at Accuweather.com, said the blasts of cold air were coming at the country “like a roller coaster.”

“This has been delivering direct shots of Arctic air all the way deep into the Southern United States and across Eastern Canada as well,” he told CTV News Channel.

Anderson said there were signs of a major pattern change coming in March, but predicted a few more waves of winter wind before the air begins to warm.

Environment Canada renewed its near-constant cold weather warnings for Ontario on Friday morning, due to “bitterly cold arctic air combined with strong and gusty northwest winds” that could drop wind chill values to between -30 and -35 C.

The biting cold claimed the life of a three-year-old Toronto boy Thursday morning. Elijah Marsh was found without vital signs approximately six hours after security footage captured video of him wandering out of an apartment building in the middle of the night.

With windchill, the temperature felt in the range of -30 C that night.

It’ll be even colder in Toronto on Friday, when temperatures, with the windchill, were expected to reach -35 C. That prompted Environment Canada to add a frostbite advisory to its extreme cold warning.

“People outdoors should exercise caution and dress appropriately as frostbite on exposed skin is possible in as little as 10 minutes,” Environment Canada said in a weather statement.

While extreme cold grips much of Ontario, extreme snowfall continues to snarl activity in Eastern Canada. Since January, the Maritime provinces have been hammered by a series of severe winter storms, leaving parts now buried under more than two metres of snow. Cars are trapped, snow drifts reach up to the roofs of some homes, and many have had trouble getting out their front doors because they’re blocked in by snow.

And the rough winter isn’t over yet, Anderson said. The Maritime provinces are expected to get another major snowstorm in the middle of next week, with stormy patterns continuing after that, he said.

Anderson said winter this year may not necessarily be record-breaking, but definitely ranks in the top-five coldest winters for many regions in Canada – with some definite exceptions.

“If you go to the west, it’s been incredibly warm,” Anderson said. “We’ve had cherry blossoms in Vancouver. It’s just a crazy winter.”

Temperatures have been cold enough to render the iconic Niagara Falls `frozen,’ though water continues to flow over the waterfall on the border between Ontario and New York.

Niagara Falls

The cold has also stretched down into the eastern U.S., where several states are coping with extreme cold and heavy snow.

It was even cold enough to freeze a geyser in New York’s Letchworth State Park.

 
Post by JoBeth Rath.