'Warmer than normal' summer in store for most of Canada: climatologist

CTV News Channel: Summer weather expectations Environment Canada David Phillips speaks about last year's summer weather in Canada and how it will compare to this year.

It’s time to dust off the fan, unpack the swimsuit and head outdoors because the first day of summer has officially arrived and the season is predicted to be a hot one for most of Canada.

Environment Canada’s senior climatologist David Phillips said that most of the country will enjoy warmer-than-normal temperatures this summer; however, they won’t be quite as hot as last year.

“People now are saying, ‘hey, we live in the second-coldest country in the world, we deserve a warmer-than-normal summer,’” Phillips told CTV News Channel on Wednesday.

The only exceptions to the weather prediction are eastern Baffin Island and possibly southern Ontario, Phillips said.

The climatologist said the models for southern Ontario have been trickier to read compared to the data for the rest of the country.

“We’re not sure how it’s going to go,” Phillips said. “I think it’s hinting at warmer. The Americans are saying warmer than normal, a lot of warmer than normal around Ontario, so my thinking is that it will fill in.”

Phillips said British Columbia might be in store for some warmer weather as early as this weekend if some of the hot, desert air currently stifling the southwestern U.S. and grounding flights in Arizona makes its way up the coast.

In terms of precipitation, the future is less clear.

Although many regions endured a cool, soggy spring, Phillips said it’s hard to tell if the already well-watered crops will be in for more rain this summer.

He said precipitation in the summer can be unpredictable because some regions can receive a lot of rain in a short burst of time while nearby areas see almost nothing.

“For example, last weekend in Toronto they had in some areas 65 millimetres of rain, almost a month’s total, and yet at the airport they had seven millimetres,” Phillips said. “It can rain in your front yard but not in your backyard.”

Phillips said the rain-soaked spring means there will be less threat of droughts for crops this summer, even if it is warmer than normal.

“There’s a lot of good news out there for farmers, for vacationers,” he said. “But again, it’s not going to be the summer of last year.”