Halloween forecast: Nothing scary, but your costume may need a jacket
Wondering what the weather will be like this Halloween in Canada? We have your temperature trends and precipitation chances to help you plan your trick-or-treating or any other fun outdoor activities on Oct. 31
Halloween is almost here across Canada!
Before you put the finishing touches on your costume, you might be wondering: Will the weather co-operate?
A tale of two seasons is beginning to take shape in the country for Oct. 31.
Bundle up where you need to, but there won’t be a major storm. Many folks can expect cooler-than-normal temperature, which will have the skeletons shaking to stay warm.
B.C.
The overall pattern has a deep trough over B.C., bringing with it, unsettled conditions and cooler-than-normal temperatures.
A shortwave trough over the region is bringing unsettled weather after the offshore, low-pressure system passes on Friday.
This will bring on-and-off showers for the Sunshine Coast and high-alpine snow across the Kootenay region.
Prairies to southern Ontario
High pressure holding steady from the Prairies to southern Ontario will bring above-seasonal temperatures and an abundance of sunshine.
Although the Prairies will have a southerly flow, southern Ontario is pulled into an easterly flow, leading to seasonal temperatures.
Southwestern Ontario will be where the warmest temperatures are found, with daytime highs in the mid-to-high teens.
Atlantic Canada
A northwesterly flow is unfolding across Atlantic Canada for Halloween.
A cold front will bring light showers through Friday, and will lead to chiller temperatures on Saturday.
With a trough associated with a low pressure offshore, that means there will be a chance of a sea-effect, rain-snow mix across western Newfoundland.
While it will be dry. you definitely need to bundle up with single-digit highs.
Canadian Halloween extremes
Warmest Halloween high: Welland, Ont.: 26.1 C (1876) Shoutout to 2024 when highs across southern Ontario pushed into the low 20s. Ottawa had its warmest Halloween on record (23.9 C)
Coldest Halloween high: These vary across Canada, from barely above freezing in Toronto in 1917, to a high of just -8.3 C in Kapuskasing, Ont., in 1951.
Farther west, it’s been much colder. Trick-or-treating in Churchill, Man., in 1991 would have been extreme, with the daytime high just reaching -14 C. Kindersley also featured a nearly -14 C high in 1984.
The year 1984 continues to be an infamous year when the high in Red Deer didn’t budge above -18.4 C--absolutely exceptional for late October.
Edmonton takes one of the top chill spots with a -18.5 C high in 1984. That year (1984) continues to deliver some of the weirdest weather across British Columbia.
Weirdest Halloween weather: Halloween 1984 actually snowed across the South Coast of British Columbia--across portions of the Lower Mainland and up the coast of Vancouver Island.Snow is pretty rare at any time of the year, but in October, it was unprecedented until 1984.
Nanaimo, B.C., picked up 20 cm of snowfall, while Campbell River, B.C., received nearly 30 cm.
One of the biggest Halloween snowfalls occurred in Banff, Alta., in 1990, when 37.6 cm of snowfall accumulated.
With files from Tyler Hamilton, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.