Nearly all of Canada will see a warmer than average summer, say forecasters

A lifeguard works at Britannia Beach in Ottawa, on Tuesday, June 18, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

Canadians in almost every corner of the country should prepare for a warmer than average summer, according to the latest Environment Canada seasonal forecasts.

Experts are nearly certain that Canadians will see higher-than-normal temperatures, particularly in Ontario and eastern Canada, where those probabilities are nearing 100 per cent.

Only a few regions on B.C.’s coast — and in the Northwest Territories — are expecting a colder-than-average season.

Experts shared their forecasts in a media briefing on Tuesday.

Jennifer Smith, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the warm summer might show itself as a major heatwave in some areas, or as persistent slightly-elevated temperatures in others.

In any case, the forecast is a gauge of the summer as a whole, not particular days, and there will still be cold stretches and days in warm areas.

“How that warmth shows up over the course of the summer can vary,” she said, adding the warm trend could be just enough to “nudge the stats,” but that it’s not always noticeable.

“It gives a sense of the general trends for the summer, but it’s not designed to answer local questions,” Smith said.

“Think of them as setting the stage. They give you the backdrop, but not the script,”

Environment Canada says it is also expecting more severe fire weather this summer, particularly in western parts of the country in August.

In many regions, no prediction could be made on rainfall totals. Humidity is expected to be higher than normal, and forecasters are particularly confident of those predictions in Atlantic Canada.

Climate warming faster in Canada

The country is warming faster than other countries around the world, and experts say most of that warming is attributable to human-caused climate change.

Bill Merryfield, a research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the average summer temperature in Canada has warmed 1.8 degrees Celsius since 1948.

He said that climate change is making extreme events, like heat waves, more likely. According to analysis by the federal government, the heat wave that hit Alberta at the end of May was somewhere between two to 10 times more likely to occur because of climate change.