January outlook: Winter hits pause in Canada before striking back
After a strong start to winter, cold air will temporarily hit pause across Canada before the heart of winter returns to close the month
Winter started strong across much of Canada as cold temperatures and ample snowfall spread from the Rockies to the Atlantic.
January is historically our coldest and snowiest time of the year. But will this month live up to its reputation?
A spell of mild weather will interrupt our wintry plans during the second week of the month, but look out for a likely flip back to colder conditions during the latter half of January.
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Winter started strong in December
Most communities across Canada endured a robust kickoff to the winter season during December.
Temperatures came in below seasonal for most areas east of the Rockies, with only southern British Columbia and Nunavut witnessing warmer-than-normal conditions. Folks in the Yukon saw Canada’s coldest December temperature in more than 50 years.
Plenty of snow accompanied the frigid air. Edmonton saw 367 per cent of its normal snowfall in December, picking up 59.9 cm against an average of just 16.3 cm through the month.
Toronto, Montreal, and St. John’s also measured above-average snowfall in December. Kapuskasing, Ont., ended the month with a whopping 173 cm of snow on the ground.
Cold winds down, January thaw takes hold
The pattern that dominated Canada in December continued into the beginning of January, but a change is on the way.
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Winter will soon hit the pause button as mild Pacific air floods the country during the second week of the month. This should be the ‘January thaw’ that many folks look forward to every season.
A frigid trough will keep the season’s coldest air holed up over Alaska, allowing above-seasonal conditions to spread across most of Canada into the middle of January.
Winter plots its return into the second half of January
Don’t let the temporary warmup fool you. There are pretty strong signals that much of the country will flip back to a colder pattern for the second half of the month, potentially resembling what we saw in December.
Across the west, a ridge expected to build into the eastern Pacific and B.C. will bring a quieter pattern to the region for the second half of the month.
The western ridge will push an upper-level trough east, allowing temperatures to turn frigid again east of the Rockies while restarting an active storm track from the Great Lakes to the East Coast.
This active storm track may allow clippers, as well as Colorado and Texas lows, to slide across Ontario and Quebec. This may also portend a busier pattern for Atlantic Canada.
Arctic air sweeping over the Great Lakes will allow a grand return of lake-effect snow for Ontario’s snowbelt communities.
Will the colder pattern expected in the latter half of January persist into February? Stay tuned for our February outlook on Sunday, Feb. 1, for all the details on how the final official month of winter will play out.