Canada’s top 10 weather stories of 2019

Each year Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Chief Climatologist David Phillips releases his top 10 weather events of the year. Here is the 2019 list:

1. Another record-setting Ottawa River flood (May-June)
It was another year of devastating spring flooding across the Ottawa River Valley where approximately 6,000 homes were inundated with flood water. Water levels were never higher in the past 120 years than what the river basin saw this year. For some residents, it was the second time dealing with the high water in past three years.

2. Active hurricane season as predicted (June-Sept.)
With six storms making their impact felt in Canada this season, the biggest and baddest was Hurricane Dorian dealing devastation down east. Dorian was set up by an earlier tropical system (Erin) that left the ground saturated, so the wind and rain from Dorian was too much for a large part of the Nova Scotia.

3. sNo-good Prairie fall (Sept.-Oct.)
Two big early-season snowfalls swept in before the farmers had time to harvest. The late September snow in Alberta left parts of Calgary with over 35 cm of snow and some mountain locales with over 100 cm. That was followed up by another crippling snowfall across the lower Prairies, sweeping through Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

4. A brutal Febrrruary in Canada (February)
Remember just how cold the winter was early this year? February was even more brutal for many areas just to our west. It turned out to be the coldest month in 72 years with some spots in Alberta only warming above -20 C twice during the month.

5. Record heat continues in the Arctic (May-Oct.)
Another sign that the Arctic is warming: Lightning near the North Pole is something that typically doesn’t see, but this year it happened. In addition to that there were fires burning in the Arctic Circle so large that they could be seen from space, and the Northwest Territories spotted a very rare tornado.

6. On the Prairies … Too dry early, too wet later (Apr.-June & Sept.-Oct.)
The farmers’ woes didn’t just have to do with the pre-harvest snowfall, they were also battling parched farmland in the spring, followed by too much rain over the summer. 2019 was not kind to agriculture in a large chunk of Canada. It ended up being one of the wettest falls in the Prairies on record.

7. Weather witch stole Halloween (October)
Remember when Montreal moved their trick-or-treat, and the rest of Canada may have snickered at that proposition? Well that storm left over 2-million customers in Quebec without power and proved to be one of the most expensive weather events of the year with an estimated $365 million in economic losses.

8. Spring missing in the East (Feb.-May)
Do you remember that crummy spring we had? We went from a winter that wouldn’t end to summer in the matter of minutes, it seemed. This ones was a big hit to farmers, golfers and gardeners.

9. Saint John River floods again (Apr.-May)
Areas in Quebec and New Brunswick were dealt another rough spring again this year as the Saint John river flooded for the second consecutive year. The difference this time, it lasted for a record amount of time.

10. Fewer fires, more burning (June-Sept.)
Fewer fires in Canada is usually good news, but there was a downside, more land area was burned. In Alberta where most of the wildfires occurred, four times the amount of area was burned and some 10,000 people were force to flee the flames. Large fires also burned in the Arctic Circle as mentioned above in number five.

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