It's official: Montreal suffers through first heat wave of the season

Courtesy: Lynn Telfer

Wednesday, July 17, 2013, 8:15 AM -

Congratulations, Montreal! You're having your first-ever heat wave.

That might sound like a no-brainer, but that's actually a technical term for a period of three consecutive days of 30-degree weather (32C is the threshold for the rest of Canada).

Montreal suffered through 31.1C on Sunday, 33.1C on Monday and, on a sweltering Tuesday, 31.4C was recorded at the city's Trudeau airport.

The city came close to its first heat wave earlier in the month, with July 5 and 6 seeing an even 30C, but July 4 was a let-down, at 29.6C -- although we doubt anyone in Montreal would make much of a distinction over 0.4 degrees.

Not much relief on the way either. The south of the province remains in the grip of a high heat and humidity warnings, with humidex values making it feel between 35 and 43 until Thursday.

Ontario is struggling through similar weather. The temperatures and humidity are well past the comfortable threshold.

Several communities in the south of the province have warned residents to take precautions. 

The city of Toronto issued an extreme heat alert, allowing cooling centres to be opened.

The east coast has also sweltered, with St. John's, Newfoundland reaching 31.2C -- the first time in 17 years the city's daily high topped 30 -- and the sticky weather was widespread throughout Atlantic Canada over the weekend.

Read about what kind of severe weather to expect across eastern Canada in this analysis by Weather Network meteorologist Rob Davis.