With temperatures expected to jump across the country this week to almost summer-like highs, Canadians will be forgiven if they get a little excited, pulling out the lawn chairs, the tank tops and the sprinklers. But beware: it’s all a bit of a tease.
The longest, dreariest winter any of us can remember may not be done with most of us yet, so the next few days of double-digit warmth will not last long.
The warm weather has already arrived in Alberta and Saskatchewan, which on Tuesday will see some of the warmest temperatures since last October.
That wave of warmth will then meander east to southern Ontario and southern Quebec on Thursday, followed by the Maritimes on Friday.
Another wave of heat will return to Canada's east on Sunday, with temperatures reaching the mid-teens in southern areas from Toronto to Montreal to Halifax, hanging around a little longer in Atlantic Canada.
But colder weather will be back to the Prairies by the weekend. It will then bring temperatures of 4 and 5 degrees to southern Ontario by early next week, and to southern Quebec by next Wednesday.
"We're going to be teased this week," Environment Canada's senior climatologist Dave Phillips told CTV News on Tuesday.
"We're going to see temperatures that are going to get up to 14, 15 degrees. We haven't seen five days in a row with double-digit positive temperatures since October."
But April is a fickle month -- the cruellest month, says Phillips – so swings back into winter-like temps are not unexpected.
"As Canadians, we think it's cruel because we feel we're owed spring. We've had enough of winter. We're winter people, but this is too much this year. But winter likes to hang on. It's the bully. It doesn't want to leave."
So don't be surprised if you wake up to a fresh falling of snow over the next couple of weeks, says Phillips, because for most parts of the country, that's normal.
The only exception to all this, of course, is that perennial weather outlier, British Columbia. Most parts of that province will move into double-digit temperatures this week and stay there for the next two weeks or so.
As for the rest of the country, Phillips sees a fairly normal April ahead.
"When we look at our models, April looks like a typical April. But those normal temperatures will feel like a tropical heat wave given what we've had for the last five months."
Looking further ahead, Phillips expects May through August to be warmer than normal, with near normal amounts of precipitation.
"So we're going to be rewarded by nature for all this hardship we've had to endure for the last five months," he says.
"Just let's make sure we don't hear anybody complaining about the heat, because my gosh, we'll just have to remind them of how cold a winter it was."
