It was drizzly and misty, with low clouds obscuring the tops of tall buildings on Thursday evening in Toronto as people headed home from work on Adelaide Street West. People were walking the sidewalks, umbrellas in hand, often bumping into other umbrella-holders. It was only 10 C out, and people were dressed in an assortment of spring jackets or heavier coats.
This isn’t the type of weather most Torontonians probably expect for May 22. The average temperature for this time of year is 21 C.
On the same day last year, it was nearly 30 C.
It was the third day in a row with overcast conditions, rain and chilly weather. And there doesn’t seem to be any stretch of good weather in sight.
And it’s not just affecting those in Ontario’s capital.
“Southern central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Quebec and into the Maritimes, they’re wondering, when is summer going to arrive,” said David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).
“I mean, my gosh, this week it’s been warmer in the Northwest Territories than it has in Toronto.”
Where is the fine spring weather we’ve come to expect at this time of year?
“It’s what we call a cold low; it’s a low pressure area that spins around,” said Phillips. “It’s south of the Great Lakes, around Lake Erie to the south, and it’s dominating the kind of cloudy, coolish, kind of rainy kind of weather … so it’s driving the cold air down from the north, and the low is taking it in and spinning it around in the south.”
That low pressure is proving difficult to shake.
But it’s not that the region didn’t experience nice weather at all this month.
“We were teased by that great wake of the week before. I mean, last Friday, it got up to almost 30 degrees in Toronto,” Phillips said. “We thought, oh my gosh, the long weekend is coming up. Let’s get going, pack the car and head out. And then it just turned miserable.”
The same weather plagued Montreal, which went from near 30 C on May 16 to clouds and rain on May 19. And Halifax and Fredericton experience similar shifts.
“We feel cheated and and short-changed and wonder if, in fact, this is the pattern for the summer,” Phillips said.
Maybe one of the reasons for feeling short-changed is because spring temperatures in Canada have risen by 1.9 C over the past 77 years.
“We know that the springs are more summer-like, and the falls are more summer-like. The summer season has grown. It’s not only is it intense in the summer, but it seems to be longer,” Phillips said. “And that’s clearly the fallout from from climate change.”
While Canadians may wonder what summer has in store for them, ECCC is calling for a warmer-than-average summer across the country.
On Friday, it was still overcast and drizzly in Toronto.
But that didn’t stop Marcella Downy from visiting Down 2 Earth Garden Centre in Etobicoke.
“We need to get going with the garden, and and we’re just gonna wait for that little break to plant,” she said. “But we’re trying to pick up a few things and and get ready.”
Paul Zammit, a professor at Niagara College’s environment division, said that there are cascading effects to this weather when it comes to the business side of it.
“The general sense that I’m getting from retailers is people are being a bit cautious. We’re not sure if that’s just the economy. This weather certainly isn’t helping it,” he said. “So [people] not going out and buying. Shelves are very full, and retailers are then not reordering, so the wholesalers are not moving their stuff. So it’s, you know, this trickle effect.”
That’s not news to C.J. Torriano, owner of Down 2 Earth, who said that, while business has been slow, he’s doing his best to be patient.
“We’ve been doing our best here to protect all our product and be ready for for when the sun does come out,” he said. “I mean, we can’t fight with mother nature. So we do the best we can to keep our stuff looking good. And then hopefully in the next few days we get some nice weather and we get back on pace.”
As for Phillips, he says he believes what we’re seeing is just a blip and that warmer weather will soon be upon us.
“I think my my fearless forecast is that, you know, probably in two weeks time from now, Torontonians and Montrealers will be complaining about the heat and humidity,” Phillips said. “We always like to complain about the weather.”
