Next two weeks to be cold but January and February can’t be predicted just yet.
Winter 2025 is currently shaping itself into a question mark.
At the start of December, 21 centimetres of snow had fallen in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), more than double the average amount says David Phillips, climatologist emeritus with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).
“We normally would have had by this time of the winter about less than 10 centimeters. So, we’ve had double that. But that’s not a huge difference. And last year at this time, we had, wow, it was probably about 0.2 of a centimeter. November was quite warm last year and was snow free and lots of rain.”
Despite what he says was a warmer than normal period for five of the six previous months, Toronto has seen itself eased into winter, something other parts of the country could not do because of the early onset of the Polar Vortex.
“I always think that you don’t want to be like Winnipeg is. This year they had their warmest fall on record, and then the next day we finished the fall there, the polar vortex was biting deep and hard. And so, they went from almost shirt sleep weather to polar fleece from head to toe. So, even for hardy Winnipeggers, it’s a hard cross to bear,” said Phillips. “And we didn’t do that this year in Toronto; we eased into it. I always think it’s better to ease into it; get a few frost days; you get a few days where you don’t get any melting going on, and you get some snow. And so we were, I think, better prepared for it when we entered December, the first day of winter.”
It should be noted that the official start to winter is Dec. 21, however, groups like ECCC work off meteorological winter – the entirety of the months December, January, and February.
With the month now in full swing, Phillips says that he is quite confident that December will be colder than normal. The next few weeks also look to be rather chilly, with temperatures not expected to move above the freezing mark.
He says any precipitation we can expect over the next several weeks will more than likely be snow, but that shouldn’t worry anyone.
“I mean, we know how to handle that. We are the snowiest country in the world, and even in Toronto, we get over 100 centimeters a year. Last year we had a fairly healthy amount of snow, about 20 per cent more than we normally would get. And so we can handle those kinds of things.”
Looking towards the remaining two-thirds of winter, Phillips says it’s more difficult to predict due in part to the potential for a polar vortex to return.
The vortex in question is a mass of low pressure and cold air that normally sits about 50-kilometres above the surface of Earth. The earliest occurrence in the last 70 years, the vortex brings what Phillips calls “Siberian” air down through Canada and into parts of the U.S.A.
“When the polar vortex is strong, it’s spinning around there at the top of the world, and also the bottom of the world is a southern hemispheric polar vortex too. And so, it’s spinning around like a barber’s pole, and it’s got a wall of wind around it, like a powerful polar jet. And it’s like a spinning top that a child has, and it’s just spinning around there, and it’s just not going anywhere,” he said.
He adds that once it “leaves home” the polar vortex can go anywhere, as there are no tariffs at the border to prevent it on its journey.
“Thing is, it could be there the polar vortex, but it could very well go to Europe and not to eastern Canada. It could go to western Canada and flood down on the east side of the Rockies, affecting the prairies and into the interior of B.C., and go down that way to the United States and Texas. And that would clearly be cold for them, but not for us, although some of that cold then moves eastward. It kind of it’s like molasses cold air. It’s thick and heavy and dense and hugs the ground and fills all the nooks and crannies and it flows out, and it’s hard, there’s no mountain barriers to stop it. There’s no tariffs at the border to prevent it from going south.”
