Hottest summer on record for two of Canada's largest cities
Meteorologist
Thursday, September 22, 2016, 9:37 AM - Wednesday marked the end of a record-breaking summer for some of Canada’s largest cities, as both Toronto and Montreal experienced their hottest season ever – at least by one metric.
FALL IS BACK: After a hot summer what can Canadians expect from fall? Find out with The Weather Network’s 2016 Fall Forecast | FORECAST & MAPS HERE
Daily Mean Temperature is a useful statistic for meteorologists, and though you may not find it in your typical forecast, it does tell us some interesting things about the characteristics of a season. The daily mean is the average of the maximum and minimum (high and low) temperature observed in a given day.
A day with a hot afternoon but a cool overnight will have a lower daily mean than a day that remains warm around the clock. So when the daily mean is high, you get less relief from the heat once the sun goes down.
In 2016, Toronto’s Pearson International Airport and Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport both recorded their highest average Daily Mean Temperature for any summer on record.
Here are the rankings:
If you look only at the Daily Maximum Temperature – the highest temperature observed at any point during the day – the rankings shift slightly, and 2016 falls short of the top spot. Still, these numbers are impressive, with Toronto’s average high temperatures near 3°C warmer than last year, and over 4°C warmer than 2014.
Not every city in the region broke records this year. Hamilton, Ontario for example only ranked as the 11th hottest summer on record by mean temperature. As is always the case in the summer, differences in precipitation, location relative to the lakes, elevation, and many other factors play a big role in the amount of heat you experience. But these statistics do emphasize just how memorable this summer was for some locations.
