Snowstorms

To add to what you said, a severe cold outbreak or heatwave that lasts about a week shouldn't be a measure of climate change. It's more about annual trends as per your graph. If you go back to the 40's, 50's, 60's, etc. you'd note some winter's didn't have any real impressive cold outbreaks, but they were consistently cold for DJFM. What I've noticed in recent years is that we get one impressively cold month while the others are near or above average. From a temperature vantage point Detroit, Toronto, Upstate NY and parts of NNE have a similar climatology. Winters like 1940-41, 1942-43, 1944-45, 1945-46 and 1947-48 all featured consistent cold in DJF and that's just one decade. Really can't say the same for the 2000s or 2010's. Like for example: 2001-02, 03-04 (aside from Jan), 2005-06, 2006-07 (aside from Feb), 2007-08, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2019-20 were all incredibly warm winters. From a trend perspective they outweigh any warm winter in the past. So there's been a definite warming trend in winter. Snowfall is just a byproduct of temperatures in my opinion. Even if it's 33 or 34F it can still snow. Just because the snowfall trend has been going up, locally, it doesn't mean the overall trend is "good" or "cool".

Although we haven't yet reached our minimum sea ice extent/area for the year, winter has started again in northern Canada. https://weather.gc.ca/city/pages/nu-27_metric_e.html Resolute, Nunavut is losing 15 minutes of sunlight per day.

We had over 100 days of snow-cover in 2013-14. That ice storm solidified the snow base and we just kept adding onto it. Despite that mid Jan thaw we had, our snowpack still survived. I won't forget watching the 2014 winter classic on TV, in Ann Arbour if I'm not mistaken, and seeing all that heavy snow coming down for hours. We missed out on that storm unfortunately. 2010-11 was another great La Niña winter. Highly unlikely this year's La Niña will peak anywhere near that year. Our area, specifically Detroit - Toronto, can do well regardless of ENSO state. 2008-09 was just great especially coming off the heels of 07-08. I got over 30" that December alone. I was in high school during that Dec 2008 storm and I remember getting a half day because of all the snow which kick started the winter holidays haha. Jan 2009 had some impressive cold across much of the east. One of the craziest December cold snaps in recent times was in Dec 2017 around Christmas time. Although we haven't seen a wall to wall cold winter since 2014-15, we have seen some impressive cold shots as ORH noted in his previous post, i.e. Jan 2019.

Experienced a once in a lifetime ice storm in Dec 2013. Was also the coldest winter on record in more than 25 years in my neck of the woods. Apparently parts of Manitoba were colder than the surface of Mars that winter. Feb 2015 however was the coldest month ever recorded in Toronto. I wouldn't mind a repeat of 2013-14 or 2008-09. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto-ice-storm-2013-photos-from-the-gtas-winter-nightmare

This will likely continue strengthening through next week. That warm pool has an eerie resemblance to 2013-14 but at the same time it also concedes with a strengthening -PDO. Early guess would be 2013-14/2008-09 and 2017-18 blend using the most recent Nina years. La Nina's can transition into winter pretty quickly. Just ask Denver next week.

Got another 0.4" with this. Nothing impressive lol. Models have a more typical late Fall type of system next week that could bring widespread rain if it comes to fruition. Will be monitoring.

Rained pretty good last night. As per radar, Kitchener was in the heaviest bands as compared to surrounding areas. Unless your house has a dome and it completely missed your backyard. The thunderstorm ~2am last night woke me up. As of 2am, YYZ recorded 0.4" (10.4mm). Not sure if more fell afterwards but I wouldn't suspect anything more than 0.2" if it did. Still better than last weekend’s shitshow where it rained everywhere in the entire province expect Kitchener and Toronto.

Hey we in Toronto are in the same boat too. Fall usually signals the end of thunderstorm season and the start of more typical Fall storms. Better chances of rain with them as thunderstorms are more localized. He'll catch a good vibe then.

OT but starting to see that 540-line popping up especially across the northern parts of the sub forum on the LR GFS. Even starting to see some blue hues popping up in the Canadian Prairies. Real good chance we see our first real taste of Fall near Labor Day given current teleconnection forecast (+PNA/-EPO). Fall is coming.

Yeah, I just saw the radar. About to cross over to Lake Erie. Impressive line of severe thunderstorms, hearing reports of near hurricane force winds. Hopefully the storms tomorrow night and Saturday pan out. Dynamics look good for widespread t-storm development including Kitchener.

It was modeled to miss you. For us here in the city, the Niagara Escarpment can tear apart storms before they reach us but you're far away from it. Can't even use that excuse

Most recent MEI value (JJ) was -1.0 which is borderline moderate La Nina. The new value for JA may come in higher as we've seen more progressive cooling across all ENSO regions through-out this month. Further cooling should continue over the next few weeks as a strong trade wind burst is expected next week esp over western ENSO regions. The new MEI v2 uses 5 variables compared to the old MEI which used 6. I prefer MEI as it takes into consideration all ENSO regions compared to ONI.

3.33" this month so far at YYZ but that number is deceiving. 3.1" of that fell in 3 days earlier this month. In reality only 4.2" has fallen since July 12th. Models are showing couple thunderstorm risks tomorrow and the chance for more steadier rain Friday night into Sat morning. Let's see if that verifies. Been dry as hell.

Been a boring ass summer. Barely any severe thunderstorms and the thunderstorms we did get were either late in the evening or at night lol. Even with all the extended periods of dry weather we got this summer, not one day was cloud free. Aside from the extreme heatwave we had in early July, we haven't had anything remotely close to that all summer. The heatwave going on right now isn't anywhere as extreme as that was. Today was the first day all month that Toronto hit 90F lol.

It sucks to live downwind of the lakes especially when you've got Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe and Lake Huron to your north and Lake Ontario to your south. In the summer, you can never get a full on sunny day because by the late morning, the clouds start rolling in and it becomes partly cloudy until sunset. On the other hand, in the winter, the Sun hardly comes out lol.

Nina winters with some NAO blocking are epic, i.e. 55-56, 64-65, 70-71, 95-96, 08-09 and 10-11.

They've made masks mandatory in all indoor settings including apartments and condominiums (public areas). Gyms and fitness centers finally opened up after being closed for nearly 5 months. I believe they're contemplating on keeping that US-Canada border closed until December.

Got ~25mm yesterday in my area with that storm cell. Better chance this weekend for some more widespread thunderstorms. We'll need to watch the "tropical" storm coming up the east coast and where it tracks and how it interacts with the low coming in from the Midwest. That will determine where the thunderstorms develop over the weekend.

Need some serious rain. Only 0.3" since June 10th. Spring was dry too. Grass is literally toast out here.

It's May 19 and we have yet to crack 70F here. The last time it was 70F was back in early October. I feel you. . Just a few more days of this crap.

You and @mississaugasnow both live in the wrong country if you expect constant blowtorches and heatwaves. We got spoiled with above average May's from 2010-2016 raising our expectations for May temperatures. But to be fair, what we're seeing this weekend and into next week is typical weather for May. I think it's time you take a trip down memory lane and look at other May's like 2008, 2005 and 2002 just to name a few. All of them expect 2008 transitioned into a hot summer despite being well below normal in May. We only average 12 days above 20C in May. There's still 15 days left and we've had one officially at YYZ so far. May is NOT a summer month for us.

The ONI is more widely used to categorize ENSO events, but I prefer MEI as it takes into consideration more variables. The 2010-11 La Nina was the last strong Nina event. The coldest anomalies were centered around Region 1+2 and 3 as opposed to Region 4, atleast in the beginning. So there is a chance we could see a pretty healthy La Nina event if the upwelling continues. Haven't dug deep into this year's ENSO event but will be doing so over the next few weeks. Your posts are always informative, great work!

Now that you mention it, a friend of mine got stung by a yellow jacket on his head on that exact weekend last year near his cottage. Was not a pretty sight.

Just like those pesky wasps.

When I went grocery shopping last week, I saw numerous bottles of hand sanitizer. It was sold out everywhere prior to that. Limit was 2, so I grabbed 2 lol. Now we wait for Lysol and/or Clorox wipes to be restocked.