Snowier than normal winter
La Nina means winter in Peterborough will be snowy and long, The Weather Network winter forecast predicts
Keep your snow blowers, shovels, and ice scrapers handy. The Weather Network is predicting a colder and snowier winter than normal for Peterborough.
A developing La Nina coupled with an active storm track are to blame.
“As a whole, Canadians should expect a wild ride from start to finish,” stated Chris Scott, chief meteorologist at The Weather Network, in its annual winter season forecast for 2017-18.
“It’s safe to say we’ll all be participating in winter this year.”
On average Peterborough gets about 137.9 centimetres of snow per season and only 34 days of at least 0.2 cm of fresh snow, which is ninth lowest of Canada’s 34 census metropolitan areas.
But this year, a classic Canadian winter is expected, with an active storm track bringing above average snowfall across the central and southern Ontario regions, The Weather Network predicts.
“A stormy weather pattern could bring the Greater Toronto Area its snowiest winter in a decade. In fact, it is interest to note that there are some similarities in the global weather pattern between this year and the winter of 2007-2008, which brought Pearson airport its snowiest winter on record,” the forecast stated.
“The cold will be the bigger story across northwestern Ontario with colder than normal temperatures expected. However, the pattern will relax at times with an extended period of milder weather expected mid-winter.”
There is also a heightened threat for freezing rain at times across the south, the outlook predicts.
“Even though we’re expecting above-normal snowfall, you still could see a fair amount of rain -and potentially a few freezing rain events,” stated Brad Rousseau, a meteorologist for The Weather Network.
The only places expected to have an early spring are parts of northern Canada and across southern parts of Atlantic Canada.
The good news is that there should be a bit of a reprieve midwinter. Rousseau said most of Ontario will see a thaw period around late January to early February, followed by a winter comeback.
“I have my doubts it will be as warm as spring, but there will be a period where we’re trending above seasonal,” Rousseau promised. “Then we’ll have another shot of below-seasonal, and another active storm period.”
Of course, there’s a scientific explanation for all this prognostication. The Weather Network foresees the phenomenon known as La Nina this winter -- i.e., cooler than average water temperatures in central and eastern parts of the Pacific Ocean. It’s the cold counterpart to El Nino.
Hallmarks of La Nina include harsher winters for Canada’s western provinces and sometimes Ontario, along with wetter conditions on the west coast and near the Great Lakes.
“The tricky thing with La Nina is there’s no specific pattern that locks in for a long period of time. You’ll get a period of cold, balanced out with a period of warmth, and so on,” Rousseau said.
-- with files from Dalson
Chen, Postmedia Network