The numbers are in and the GTA saw a historically hot summer
Posted September 2, 2020 2:15 pm.
Last Updated September 2, 2020 4:17 pm.
You might be thinking that this story comes too soon since summer isn’t officially over and that’s partially true! Meteorological summer begins on June 1 and ends on August 31, which makes it the perfect time to reflect on the season that was in the GTA.
Toronto hit a number of weather milestones during the summer months but some of the most notable involve the blistering heat we experienced.
One eye-popping statistic is that July 2020 was the warmest month of July on record, since record keeping started in 1937, with an average temperature of 25 degrees.
The average temperature is calculated by adding the high and low temperature and dividing by two, over the course of a whole month.
We also can’t forget about the nine day heat wave from July 2 to July 10 where temperatures were at 30 degrees or warmer and humidex values around 40.
Some other dates with milestones include July 2 being the hottest day of 2020 with a high temperature of 35.5° and July 9 with the highest humidex recorded out at Pearson International of 42.
Summer in the GTA did not bring many extended cool downs as the weather patterns tended to favor more ridges in the jet stream that impacted our region and brought above average temperatures along with some rounds of extreme heat.
In fact, we’ve had 35 days in 2020 with temperatures over 30, typically, we only have about 16 days a year where that happens
It wasn’t a washout of a summer either but when it rained, it really poured. We can’t forget about the first four days of August, including the Civic Day long weekend, which featured 78 millimetres of rain. That total beats the monthly total of rain for June and July.
Finally, we can’t forget about the threats for severe weather we had during the summer including two Tornado Watches for Downtown Toronto and portions of the GTA.
In review, it was a warm summer with the average temperature being 22.5 degrees for the entire season. You might be wondering what’s in store for the fall? Temperatures during September look to be at or slightly below normal for this time of year.
