The fall is ‘going to continue to give to us,’ says Environment Canada climatologist, as summer comes to an end

Dave Phillips, a climatologist at Environment Canada, reflects on the summer weather, air quality, heat warnings, and what to expect from fall temperatures.

While this summer may have been one to remember with extended periods of heat and humidity in the Greater Toronto Area followed by more comfortable conditions over the past few weeks, the fall will kick off with much of the same, says David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada.

“Fall it still has those kind of warm days and comfortable nights and the colour change season. So I think we still have a lot of good weather to brag about and boast about and bless in the next few weeks ahead, and that’s what the models say,” said Phillips, who spoke with CP24’s Melissa Duggan on Sunday afternoon.

“So I think we’re not going to have to pay for it because we had such a warm summer. No, no, no, fall is going to continue to give to us.”

The fall, which is officially set to begin at 2:19 p.m. on Monday, will see similar conditions than what we’ve seen as of late in the area, although on average it will be around seven degrees cooler in October than in September, Phillips noted. November, he said, will be another six degrees cooler.

“So by mid November, we’re going to drop 13 degrees and still call it normal. It’s not as if it’s going to be, you know, muscle shirt and tank top weather, it’s going to be jacket weather and a little heavier garments,” he said, adding that while the first frost is typically seen around Oct. 9, last year it didn’t come until the end of November.

Reflecting on the Summer of 2025, Phillips said it was one that seemingly “came later and left early.”

“We had to wait till almost the last week of June before we started complaining about the heat and humidity. And people thought: ‘Was this going to be the year without summer?’ and then (there were) 55 days, all nicely packaged there, and late June, July, and up to the first couple of weeks in August. Wow, we had some excruciatingly warm temperatures, and then about the middle of August, it sort of went away,” he said.

During that time frame, Phillips, a self-described “fall guy, said there were 24 days when the temperature was above 30 C, which he called the “optimum mark of a hot day.”

“Normally would see maybe 16 or 17 of those,” he said, noting that this summer we saw twice as many tropical nights than other years.

“Those are nights above 20. And even... temperatures just touching 35 or going a little bit above, we would see maybe one of those every two years. We had five of those suckers, and then, along with lots of humidity.”

He said this summer will be remembered as the “summer of summers for some or too much summer,” for others, as the “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” brought waves of heat along with mostly dry and occasionally hazy, and even some smoky, conditions.

Phillips noted that the conditions people in the GTA saw this summer could be a foreshadow of what it might be like in the region in 2050, except there could be up to 90 days of heat and humidity.

“But it has absolutely been just so comfortable the last month that I think people are saying, you know, they like this kind of weather. No heat on, no air conditioning on. It’s not costing us any money. … I’m not going to give it a perfect 10 this summer, but I think it was pretty remarkable,” he said.

On the last full day of summer, Toronto saw temperatures in the low 20s, feeling closer to 25 C.