No, you’re not imagining things. It’s been unbearably cold this winter.
And in some places it’s about to get worse.
Atlantic Canada — already battered by two major storms over Christmas — has yet another brutal blast of winter on the way. With Newfoundland recovering from a massive snowfall, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. will get hit hard Thursday, with blowing snow and winds strong enough to do potential damage.
Huge swaths of New Brunswick, Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan are under extreme cold warnings at the moment — even as it’s weirdly warm in cities such as Edmonton or Calgary.
And then there’s Ontario.
Extreme cold warnings blanket the province, with temperatures low enough to break long-standing records. According to David Phillips, Senior Climatologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada, the temperature in Toronto on New Year’s Eve — a bone-chilling -18.6 — tied a record for cold set in 1859.
Phillips says people are fed up in Toronto because it really and truly is cold, and not just because of wind-chill factor. It’s about 12 degrees colder than average. The coldest day in Toronto last winter was -14.2; this winter, the city has already had eight days colder than that.
By the end of the week, that number will be 11 days, because the icy grip is about to tighten. On Thursday and Friday, the nighttime lows are expected to be in the neighbourhood of -21.
“There will be a bit of snow on Wednesday,” says Phillips, “and after that lifts, a fresh surge of Siberian air comes in for Thursday and Friday.”
Luckily, says Phillips, that frigid weather won’t go on much longer.
By the time kids go back to school next week, it might be a balmy 0.
“We might have a January thaw,” says Phillips. “Only in one year since 1844 — 1979, I think — we didn’t have a January thaw, so it’s like death and taxes. It’ll be there. By the second week of January, we’ll see some thawing temperatures.”
February and March, he adds, may be warmer than normal, so that’s something to look forward to.
“This cold makes us hardy. We’ve dug out the polar fleece and the balaclavas by now, so we know where it all is. In Toronto, what we call the dead of winter falls about Jan. 21, 22 or 23. That’s when you can celebrate having half the winter behind you. That’s the bottom, and after that we begin that slow rise upward.”
One more thing: The real drag with this winter’s cold, says Phillips, “is the duration. It goes on so long, and psychologically, it’s really a bummer. People get so fed up they decide to go south, whether they can afford it or not.
“But guess what? Tallahassee is as cold as Tuktoyaktuk right now, so you might as well stay home!”