Tag: winter

Thou­sands still without power after Monday’s storm

This article was written by the Canadian Press and was published in the Toronto Star on December 31, 2025.

People in parts of Ontario and Que­bec were deal­ing with more messy weather and in some cases bliz­zard­like con­di­tions on Tues­day as storm fronts con­tinue to hit the area.

Envir­on­ment Canada warned of near­zero vis­ib­il­ity at times in bursts of heavy snow as squalls blew through parts of north­ern Ontario and west of Toronto.

Large snow­fall amounts were expec­ted in a wide swath of south­west­ern Ontario through Wed­nes­day after­noon that could exceed 50 cen­ti­metres by Thursday morn­ing in parts of Huron County and other regions.

Sev­eral high­ways around Tim­mins, Ont., remained closed Tues­day morn­ing after Monday’s heavy snow­fall in the region and ongo­ing blow­ing snow advisor­ies. The city also issued an extreme cold weather alert as wind chill tem­per­at­ures are expec­ted to drop to ­28 C overnight.

A winter storm Monday brought freez­ing rain, blow­ing snow and strong winds across East­ern Canada that knocked out power to tens of thou­sands of people in Ontario.

Accord­ing to Hydro One util­ity’s out­age map, thou­sands in the province were still without elec­tri­city as of Tues­day after­noon.

Mean­while, Envir­on­ment Canada says some areas north­east of Que­bec City and into north­ern New Brun­swick could see between 15 and 40 cen­ti­metres of snow along with high winds.

In Que­bec’s far north, bliz­zard con­di­tions were expec­ted to per­sist at least until mid­day on Thursday.

Much of Canada has been blas­ted with a num­ber of weather sys­tems over the past week, ran­ging from bliz­zards and cold snaps to freez­ing rain.

The weather has caused flight delays and can­cel­la­tions at air­ports in Montreal, Hal­i­fax and else­where dur­ing the hol­i­day travel period.

Para­med­ics report hav­ing to clear ice and snow to get some people safely loaded into ambu­lances

This article was written by Morgan Lowrie and was published in the Toronto Star on December 30, 2025.

A winter storm brought freez­ing rain, blow­ing snow and strong winds across East­ern Canada on Monday, lead­ing to a surge in 911 calls in Montreal.

Montreal­area ambu­lance ser­vice Urgences­santé said that for a period on Monday morn­ing it received some 100 calls per hour — many for people who had fallen and hurt them­selves on ice­coated side­walks.

Spokes­per­son Valérie Guertin urged people to stay home if pos­sible, and if they had to go out­side, she advised them to wear cram­pons and adapt their driv­ing to the weather.

“Ambu­lance requests (are) mostly for falls on the ice, trau­matic injur­ies or people with injur­ies fol­low­ing a fall,” she said in a phone inter­view.

By after­noon, another spokes­per­son, Alex­an­dre Sapone, said the call volume had dropped slightly to between 60 and 70 calls per hour, com­pared to between 40 and 50 in nor­mal times.

Sapone said that in addi­tion to a rise in 911 calls, crews were facing chal­lenges around load­ing people safely onto ambu­lances — some­times requir­ing para­med­ics to clear entrances of snow and ice and spread salt or other abras­ives on the ground.

Much of south­ern and west­ern Que­bec were under weather alerts for pro­longed peri­ods of freez­ing rain with ice pel­lets.

And while most of those alerts had been lif­ted by late after­noon, some areas remained under wind warn­ings, includ­ing Montreal where gusts of up to 90 kilo­metres per hour were expec­ted.

Vast swaths of the province were also under winter storm warn­ings, with regions such as Saguenay, Lac St­Jean and Lower St. Lawrence expect­ing some 20 to 30 cen­ti­metres of snow along with strong winds.

More than 12,000 Hydro­Québec cli­ents were without power as of 6 p.m., includ­ing some 9,700 homes and busi­nesses in the Lauren­tians area north of Montreal.

Met­eor­o­lo­gist Eric Tom­lin­son said the pre­cip­it­a­tion had largely shif­ted to reg­u­lar rain by late morn­ing in Montreal — leav­ing behind five to 10 mil­li­metres of ice — but that freez­ing rain con­tin­ued to fall north of the city. He warned that the tem­per­at­ure was expec­ted to drop sharply dur­ing the night, which could once again turn sur­faces slip­pery.

Freez­ing rain, blow­ing snow and strong winds were in the fore­cast for many parts of East­ern Canada, from Ontario to New­found­land and Lab­rador.

Freez­ing rain warn­ings were issued in all four Atlantic provinces, includ­ing parts of New­found­land and Lab­rador where between 50 to 100 cm of snow has fallen since Christ­mas Day. New­found­land Power repor­ted more than 2,500 cus­tom­ers without power Monday morn­ing, mostly along the south­w­est coast of the Avalon Pen­in­sula.

Envir­on­ment Canada met­eor­o­lo­gist Ian Hub­bard said Atlantic Canada is in the path of the same sys­tem that brought freez­ing rain to the Great Lakes region and parts of Que­bec, but the impacts won’t be as severe since some of the pre­cip­it­a­tion would likely fall as rain.

This article was written by Yang Sun and was published in the Globe & Mail on December 24, 2025.

Globe analysis found while most Canadians still get a white Christmas, there has been less snow compared to historical average

Most Canadians still wake up to snow-blanketed streets on Christmas morning. Last year, 76 per cent enjoyed a white Christmas, defined by Environment and Climate Change Canada as at least two centimetres of snow on the ground by 7 a.m. on Dec. 25. But the experience of trudging through knee-deep drifts is becoming less likely as Decembers grow warmer and snowfall declines.

A Globe and Mail analysis of 50 years of weather data from 43 cities and ski destinations shows that while white Christmases remain frequent, snow depth is shrinking. In the past five years, 27 locations have seen thinner snowpacks – accumulated snow – compared with their long-term averages, calculated from 1975 to 2024.

The steepest declines are in places that Canadians often associate with winter wonderlands. Banff and Whistler, two of the country’s most famous ski destinations, have experienced some of the largest Christmas Day snow losses on the ground among all cities studied. That does not mean a snowless Christmas in the mountains. Both destinations still record snow on most Dec. 25s, easily clearing the two-centimetre threshold. But the data show that the snowpack is, on average, noticeably shallower than it was a few decades ago.

A similar pattern appears in several Quebec cities along the northern stretch of the St. Lawrence River, traditionally a cold and snowy corridor. These communities still see white Christmases most years, but the depth of snow on the ground has been trending downward at a relatively faster pace than in most other cities analyzed by The Globe.

The thinning snow is closely tied to rising December temperatures. Studies have linked the reduction in snowpack to humancaused global warming, and showed that even a modest increase in temperature could translate into a major reduction in snowpack. The Globe’s analysis found that 38 of the 42 cities with complete temperature data have experienced warmer Decembers when comparing recent years to the historical average.

Snow accumulated on the ground is primarily influenced by temperature and the amount of snowfall. Precipitation almost always starts as snow high in the clouds. Whether it reaches the ground as snow or rain depends on the temperature of the atmosphere layers it falls through. If the lower layers are warm, the snow melts into rain. If the air stays cold all the way down, it remains snow, said Lawrence Mudryk, a research scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Dr. Mudryk attributes the shift toward more rain than snow throughout the winter to climate change. “What you might see more of in the future is increased amounts of rain before Christmas, and then that reduces the total amount of accumulation of snow that we see by Christmas.”

Most of Canada’s population lives in the southern part of the country, an area that has traditionally guaranteed snowy winters. That snow line has shifted further north, and many Canadian cities now experience winters with alternating rain and snow.

“Snow and ice are an iconic part of the Canadian landscape. We might have to look to warmer locations and see how they already celebrate holidays,” Dr. Mudryk said. “But it’s more than just the cultural impact. More importantly, there are also environmental and ecosystem impacts as well.”

The country’s three largest metropolitan areas illustrate how those national trends play out locally in very different winter climates.

MONTREAL

In Montreal, Christmas still reliably arrives with snow on the ground, but the blanket is thinning. Average snow depth on Dec. 25 has fallen by nearly 40 per cent in recent years compared with the long-term average since 1975. At the same time, December temperatures have warmed sharply by nearly three degrees, while average daily snowfall has declined.

The result is not fewer white Christmases, but a noticeably lighter snowpack than past generations would not have expected in one of Canada’s coldest major cities.

TORONTO

The long-term and recent average snow depth on Christmas Day remain fairly unchanged in Toronto, but that doesn’t mean uneventful year-to-year change. In fact, the city has swung between deep snowpacks and bare ground on Christmas over the past 50 years.

Toronto’s December temperatures have warmed by 2.1 degrees Celsius to -0.2°C in recent years, hovering right at the freezing point where precipitation can fall as either rain or snow. At these milder temperatures, Toronto’s white Christmas has become increasingly dependent on the timing of winter storms rather than consistent seasonal accumulation.

VANCOUVER

Christmas Day snow records in Vancouver tell a story of how unusual and brutal Arctic chills can dramatically reshape holiday experiences. A city known for its grey, rainy winters has seen snow on the ground only about half the time over the past five decades.

But when Arctic-origin cold air pushes much farther south than normal, the Lower Mainland can experience substantial snowfall – and those rare events have delivered Vancouver’s only true white Christmases. During 2008, Vancouver recorded the seconddeepest Christmas snowpack among 43 cities analyzed, just behind Saguenay, Que.

This article was written by Jordan Omstead and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 27, 2025.

Blasts of frigid Arctic air could send temperatures tumbling in December and herald the arrival of a more “traditional Canadian winter,” a meteorologist for the Weather Network predicts as it releases its seasonal outlook.

Most of Canada is expected to see near or colder than normal temperatures, and near or above normal precipitation and snow, says the network’s seasonal forecast for December, January and February.

There’s still some uncertainty about whether the second half of winter’s fury will be widespread or more focused on Western Canada, said meteorologist Doug Gillham.

What’s more certain is that it will be “December to remember,” he said. The forecast isn’t necessarily calling for a “historically severe winter,” Mr. Gillham said, but “it’s going to be a colder December and January than we’ve really become accustomed to seeing in many recent years.”

“When you step back and look at big picture, winter will show up this year and it’s going to show up in a big way to start the season.”

The country experienced its warmest winter on record two years ago ahead of last year’s more typical season, Mr. Gillham said. This year is expected to look more like last year, “but the signals for cold are actually a little bit stronger,” Mr. Gillham said.

One of those signals is the polar vortex, strong winds circling up to 50 kilometres above the Arctic that keep frigid air locked near the poles. A period of surging temperatures up in that part of the atmosphere is expected to disrupt the vortex and spill that cold out over Canada in December and January.

A second consecutive winter with a weak La Niña is also set to have a cooling influence, Mr. Gillham said. The climate pattern, tied to shifting patches of water in the Pacific Ocean, can often lead to colder and stormier conditions across much of Canada.

Put those two things together, the disrupted polar vortex and the weak La Niña, and the potential goes up for extended stretches of extreme temperatures, he said.

“So, if you enjoy winter activities, that’s good news. If you think, ‘I don’t need snow tires any more,’ well, you may want to rethink that,” Mr. Gillham said.

What counts as a typical or normal Canadian winter has changed over recent decades. While they fluctuate, average winter temperatures are about 3.7 degrees warmer now than in the mid-20th century as climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, reshapes Canada’s winter way of life.

This article was written by Edward Keenan and was published in the Toronto Star on June 27, 2025.

It’s like a joke, and Toronto wrote the punch­line: First, the city opened pools early because it was so darn hot. Then, it closed a bunch of them for long stretches because it was so darn hot. It’s a skewer through the heart of the way things seem to work — or not work — at city hall.

Of course, explain­ing a joke usu­ally ruins it. And Mayor Olivia Chow spent the bet­ter part of two days explain­ing it, includ­ing in a visit to the Star’s offices on Tues­day. “Could we have done bet­ter? Yes,” was the gist. There were some mit­ig­at­ing factors: staff­ing dozens of pools and mak­ing sure they had what they needed a week earlier than usual was chal­len­ging. And because the city is an employer, it’s bound by pro­vin­cial stand­ards that gov­ern work­ing con­di­tions in extreme heat.

In any event, the hot­test days of sum­mer — the hot­test days we’d usu­ally expect any sum­mer — had arrived well ahead of sched­ule, yet the clos­ures were meas­ured in mere hours. So maybe this doesn’t need to become the sub­ject of polit­ical obses­sion. Except the pools are just one indic­a­tion of how unpre­pared the city was for this week’s heat (the fact that Chow had to scramble a response includ­ing meas­ures to bring back 24/7 cool­ing centres for home­less and other vul­ner­able pop­u­la­tions is another).

And when you take a step back, it seems as if this lack of pre­par­a­tion for extreme weather is part of a pat­tern.

In Feb­ru­ary, we got some snow (gran­ted, a lot of snow). The city was unable to clear the streets over the course of days and weeks. Last July, we got some rain (gran­ted, a heck of lot of rain). The res­ult­ant flood­ing effect­ively broke the city. And every winter, there comes a ser­i­ous cold snap that leaves us scram­bling to keep home­less people from freez­ing in the street.

Here’s the thing about weather in Toronto: we get a lot of it, and in most of your major vari­et­ies. Heat, cold, rain, snow, ice, wind, humid­ity. Yet it always seems to catch us flat­footed, as if it were something we couldn’t have anti­cip­ated.

This is partly because the cli­mate is chan­ging, as my col­league Kate Allen has noted in her recent report­ing about sum­mer heat. As a res­ult, we get more extreme ver­sions of the weather we’re used to, and at dif­fer­ent times than we once did. When the city flooded in 2013 (sub­way sta­tions under­wa­ter, roads impass­ible, base­ments sub­merged), we heard it was caused by a “cen­tury storm,” the kind we could expect to see once every hun­dred years or so. But then we got sim­ilar storms in 2018 and 2024 (not to men­tion flood­ing in 2017 that shut down the Toronto Islands for a full sea­son).

Cen­tury storms now appear to be half­dec­ade storms. We seem to get less snow over­all than we used to, but we get more of it all at once. The heat is con­stantly break­ing records, and scorch­ing­hot days are no longer con­fined to July and August: they’re also pop­ping up in June and Septem­ber (when, incid­ent­ally, more kids are in classrooms without air con­di­tion­ing).

When extreme weather hits, the mayor and other politi­cians are quick to tell us what’s gone wrong and what they’ll do dif­fer­ently next time. That includes Chow, who this week talked about hir­ing more life­guards and cre­at­ing more shade so pools can provide con­tinu­ous ser­vice in heat waves, plus a motion to coun­cil for a report on re­estab­lish­ing cool­ing centres and imple­ment­ing other heat­mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures. We heard sim­ilar “what we’ve learned” talk in the after­math of Feb­ru­ary’s snow and last sum­mer’s flood­ing.

But at some point, we have to start anti­cip­at­ing these events, not scram­bling to react to them. It’s going to get hot, and it’s going to get cold. It’s going to rain, and it’s going to snow. When the weather comes, what is it going to mean for life in the city? How is it going to affect the ser­vices gov­ern­ment deliv­ers? What meas­ures can we put in place to min­im­ize dis­rup­tions?

Chow’s ini­tial move to open pools earlier and close them later was just such a meas­ure. But the city evid­ently didn’t con­sider what its employ­ees needed, even though Ontario’s labour min­istry made that clear back in 2021: adequate shade and humid­ity mon­it­or­ing, enough staff to allow for exten­ded breaks, med­ical pro­fes­sion­als to mon­itor con­di­tions. Leav­ing the plan­ning half­done some­times means the job doesn’t get done at all.

It’s fine for the city to dia­gnose what’s gone wrong after extreme weather has passed. But given the fre­quency with which we’re exper­i­en­cing these emer­gen­cies, it’s time Toronto star­ted plan­ning for the next one rather than react­ing to the last.