Canadian Weather Centre – Blog Outreach @ Wordpress – By Amateur Meteorologist Nicholas Tam

Southern Ontario – First of all, I would like to apologize for not been promptly updating my blog and the GTA weather centre. Life has been very for me these days. I had exams, summatives, and a forecasting contest. So please forgive me for not updating my blog.

The thing with Tuen Ng festival that I mentioned on CWC (Canadian Weather Centre) really works. There is a Chinese proverb, “After the May Festival (Tuen Ng Festival is in May of the Chinese Calendar), you can safely store away your winter clothes”. This year’s Tuen Ng festival happened to be on June 9, 2008, and already the daily high of that day was into the low 30s, with humidex even higher.

Southern Ontarians have certainly enjoyed a 4 day long heat length. In those 4 days, average temperature of the city stayed around 25 C, with the coolest day being on Saturday. However, all 4 days had daily high temperature above 30 C, with humidex values of 40 C or higher. As a result, heat alert (and extreme heat alert for Monday), humidex advisory, and smog advisory had been issued for all 4 days. Record breaking temperatures are all across the province. London and Winsor respectively broke their temperature record, as a result of this warm surge of air from the Texas area. The low pressure originated from the Texas area brought the local, hot and unstable air mass with it, and invaded Southern Ontario. This air mass, as we currently speaks, is moving into Atlantic Canada. Atlantic Canada will experience temperature in the 20s (a slightly cooler value than what Ontario and Quebec experienced, because geographically, the provinces are more northerly, and the Atlantic Ocean also plays a major part in moderating the temperatures).

As a result of all of these heat, there were daytime (convection) thunderstorms. On Sunday and Monday, these thundershowers were a major issue in Southern Ontario. Consequently, severe thunderstorm watch/warning and tornado watch was issued in Southern Ontario throughout Sunday night and Monday night. Heavy downpours were reported, and rain was falling at a rate of 10 mm/hr at some locations across southern Ontario. Numerous funnel clouds were also reported. There was one in a dense residential area of Keele-Finch in Toronto. In some of the northern townships, suspected tornadoes ripped off roofs and torn down trees. Southern Ontario (excluding anywhere south of London) had not have a major tornado since the Tornado in Barrie in 1985. The same thing happened during the overnight hours of Monday / Tuesday. Trees cut off powers in some locations.

Thankfully, the wild, hot weather patterns are over. This morning in the early rush hours about (0700-0800 EDT), a cold front came through much of the Toronto area. The Toronto area did not see much severe weather because of lack of daytime heating when the front came through. All the residents saw were high winds and moderate rain. However, as the front makes its way into Eastern Ontario during the noon hours, the thunderstorms were supported by the daytime heating, and hence a severe thunderstorm watch was issued. No damage reported yet.

Behind the cold front, comes the cooler air from the prairies. The Prairies have been experiencing below normal temperatures. As this air comes into Ontario, the temperature will drastically drop back to seasonal. For the Toronto area, that would be around 23 C, with a nighttime low of 15 C. Finally, we can get some quality sleep without the heat!

Want more heat? Well, sorry to disappoint you, my readers. But the long-term forecast models are not looking good. It seems like we are in for some “Prairie Weather” for next week, with wet weather and temperature in the mid teens. However, that is still far way off, and I will keep you posted on that.

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