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One city broke a record set in 1886—that's 128 years ago!

Christmas heat breaks records across Atlantic Canada


Friday, December 26, 2014, 9:03 AM - Santa brought the heat to the east coast this Christmas.

"A low pressure systems accompanied with southwesterly winds brought rain and wind to the Maritimes," said Brian Dillon, meteorologist at The Weather Network. "Along with the foggy conditions, we also had hot temperatures in the Maritimes and Newfoundland.

The above seasonal temperatures were high enough to break several records in Atlantic Canada.

Moncton beat its 13.3 ºC record set in 1996 by more than two degrees. Their Christmas Day temperature reached a high of 15.6 ºC. Saint John hit 14.0 ºC, easily exceeding their previous high: 2003's 12.8 ºC.

Shearwater beat a record that was more than 120 years old. Their previous Christmas day high came on December 25, 1886 reaching 12.2 ºC. Their new high is 14.3ºC

Halifax and Greenwood had perhaps the biggest jump: 3.5 and 3.6 degrees respectively. Greenwood was up to 18.5 ºC this year. Almost 20 ºC!

But things won't remain feeling so spring-like in the east.

"Today they'll have cooler temperatures than yesterday," Dillon explained. "This trend will continue, bringing back temperatures closer to seasonal on Monday.

Not quite record-breaking

Temperatures in Ontario weren't hot enough to break records but it was still a vast difference from last year. In 2013, Christmas found Toronto covered in 4.5 cm of snow with a high of -3.8 ºC and a low of -17 ºC. Compare that to this year where the low was 2.8 ºC and the high was 5.5 ºC.

The same trend was seen in much of the province. Even the Great Lakes went through a great warm-up this year. Take a look at the map above comparing the amount of ice coverage the lakes saw last year compared to this year.

Lake Huron and Lake Eerie saw the biggest differences. Huron was almost a quarter covered last year while this year only 2.0 per cent of the lake had ice. Lake Eerie last year was almost 20 per cent covered and this year it had no ice.


MUST-SEE: With warm temperatures coming to an end, it's time to re-familiarize ourselves with the term 'windchill'


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