Ontario Basks In Spring-Like Temperatures But Big Changes Are Coming
Posted November 29, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Toronto flirted with record temperatures on Wednesday as the kind of conditions – as well as the kind of clothes – you’d expect to see in May came out on GTA streets.
Readings hit 15C by dinnertime, just a degree away from the record of 16.8C set exactly a year ago.
The city hasn’t really been hit by Old Man Winter yet, but he’s on his way. So locals dressed in short sleeves, shorts and yes, even sandals, were out in force on the streets soaking it all in before reality hits.
Some were enjoying the day sitting on a patio nursing a beer. Others just went out for a walk. But no one was skating at Nathan Phillips Square (top left), where the rink was a giant puddle.
And for a change there wasn’t anyone complaining about the weather just days before December.
“I wish it would stay like this much longer, preferably until about March,” laughs one woman.
Even tourists can’t believe how they’ve lucked out this week.
“Right now it feels good to be here,” agrees a Montreal man named Gucci. “I’m not ready to go back home any time soon. I didn’t come prepared for, you know, this beautiful weather we’re having here. I should have brought my shorts!”
“Toronto weather is great,” another visitor named Phil adds. “I just flew in from Dallas and it’s warmer here than it is in Dallas.”
But while we gloat, many out west are thinking coat. A bitter wind chill continues to keep temperatures at a bone rattling -40C in Alberta, while out in B.C., the problem is snow – and way too much of it.
The west coast has received more flakes in a single week than it has in ten years – at least 50 centimetres in some areas. Power is out in scattered locations, and there’s no end in sight from the relentless onslaught of Mother Nature.
Aside from the problems the snowy conditions are creating on the roads, nine people including a pregnant woman and three kids have had to be taken to hospital for carbon monoxide poisoning after gas-powered generators were used inside homes.
The folks out there are grinning and bearing it, but they’re not happy to hear about how well we’re doing back home.
“I heard that they have, like, no snow and we got all their snow,” grumbles one left coaster.
“It’s making me really cranky,” adds another woman about Toronto’s weather luck.
” I don’t like Toronto but I’d like to be there today,” admits a shivering Alberta resident.
After years of hearing about the great winter weather in B.C., few here are expressing a lot of sympathy for the besieged province.
“It’s our turn to have nice warm weather,” laughs a woman named Monica. “Sorry about that. You can come down and enjoy some of it, too.”
But not for long.
After just one more day of the extreme warmth, reality will set back in.
It will come with rain at first and then plummeting temperatures could turn that into our first real snowfall of the season.
Thursday will start out mild, but if you’re out late, don’t be fooled. CityNews meteorologist Michael Kuss warns you should take something warm to wear when the sun goes down, because it will feel much colder.
By the time Friday hits, winter will be back in town and temperatures could drop below the freezing mark. He predicts the drive home for the weekend could be a slippery or sloppy one.
For the up-to-date weather forecast, click here.
