A few welcome days of unexpected warmth

Reprieve may make winter feel `a little shorter'

Get ready to soak up a stretch of warm and sunny days. Ottawa will have weather that's more consistent with late September than a typical grey and dreary November.

The warm, dry air that arrived Thursday morning from the southern U.S. is going to linger, said Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips.

Temperatures for the next six days will be about a dozen degrees higher than normal, with nighttime temperatures never dipping below 7 C. And the warmer-than-normal temperatures will likely linger past Remembrance Day.

“It's the duration of this weather that makes it the most remarkable. It's hard in November. You might get a short taste of summer weather, but it doesn't last long,” Phillips said.

“People are going to love this. It's going to make winter seem a little shorter.”

The cause for the fine weather is a Bermuda High, a large high-pressure area. Typically, a Bermuda High brings hot and humid weather in the summer. This week, it will be bringing air that is warm, but not humid, Phillips said.

Environment Canada is predicting sun right through the weekend, with highs of 18 C on Friday and Saturday, and 16 on Sunday, then partially cloudy conditions for Monday and Tuesday with highs of 19 and 16.

That will be followed by a chance of showers on Wednesday, Remembrance Day, but temperatures will still reach a high of 12 C.

The warmest day of the bunch will be Monday, with a predicted high of 19 C, dipping only to 12 overnight.

Still, Monday likely won't touch the record of 22 C, set in 1938, Phillips said.

The next week might not set single-day records, but it's a switch from the rest of fall so far. Both September and October were a little cooler than normal.

With the length of the upcoming warm spell, November is already on track to be warmer than normal.

There is always some nervousness when there's pleasant weather in November, as though people have to brace for a meteorological karmic boomerang later on. But it doesn't always happen that way, Phillips said.

So, enjoy the weather, guiltfree.

“This kind of weather has happened before, but not during a pandemic,” he said.

“This winter will be challenging because of the social distancing and because people can't go south. People will be hibernating, not migrating. This will make it a little shorter.”