The Great Lakes will cramp your summer style in southern Ontario
Love it or hate it, the Great Lakes have a major impact to the climate in Ontario, especially while waiting for true tastes of early summer-like weather to arrive.
As the warmer weather begins to spread across western Canada and even into Quebec, it always seems like it's bypassing southern Ontario and that typically boils down to the lakes.
"Anywhere that warmth is coming from, it's getting moderated by the Great Lakes, which are still quite frigid at this time of year," says Kevin MacKay, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.
It typically takes major cities like Ottawa, Toronto and London over seven weeks to warm up from -20°C to 20°C, while in sections of northern Ontario, it's about five weeks on average, with some years taking only three weeks.
"There's plenty of land mass across the north for the warmth to rebuild, so that's why places like Timmins and Moosonee can quite often be warmer first in the spring than areas in the Greater Toronto Area," MacKay says, adding that there's a quick transition from the cold to the heat, thanks to no lake moderation.
But, there's obviously quite the price to pay across northern Ontario through the winter months. Think bitterly cold temperatures and potent snowstorms.
See more of the pros and cons for living near the Great Lakes in the video with meteorologist Kevin MacKay above.
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