Wet spring may mean more mosquitoes but warmer than average summer on the way

Toronto's cold and wet spring has created extensive breeding grounds for mosquitoes, says Environment Canada. But early long range forecasts indicate the damp spring will lead to a warmer than average summer.

Dave Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, said Toronto and Southern Ontario have had "one of the rainest first parts of the year ever that we've seen" from January on.

"Certainly there has been a lot of days with rain," he told Metro Morning on Monday. "There's a lot of breeding grounds for bugs. So maybe that tells me we might have a mosquito season this year."

Phillips said the weather has been wet not only because a "good number" of storms have drenched Toronto but also because those storms have been "hanging around" for days at a time, "raining on Thursday and still raining on Sunday."

"That generates a lot of moisture," he said. 

Phillips said Southern Ontario has had anywhere from 50 to 75 per cent more precipitation than normal this spring. The situation is even worse in the Ottawa Valley, he said, where the amount of precipitation has been nearly double the previous spring.

The wet weather has caused flooding on Toronto Islands and on Woodbine Beach in the city's east end and pooling on Eastern Avenue.

As for the rest of Canada, there has been flooding and higher water levels this year not only in Ontario, but also in Quebec, the Maritimes and B.C., he said.

But there is good news, he said.

According to "provisional forecasts," summer should be warmer than average in temperature for much of the country and that bodes well for July 1st, Canada's 150th birthday, he said. The official summer forecast comes out on June 1st. 

Phillips said, however, that Toronto may not get as many intensely hot, sweltering days as it did last year. 

"It may not be quite as nice as it was last year. It was consistently warm, a lot of muscle shirt and tank top kind of weather, beer drinking weather. I'm not sure it's going to be that way."

But there will be good weather, he said. Last year, Toronto had nearly a record number of days above 30 degrees C and it wasn't a "stormy" summer. This year will be milder, he said.

"This year, it may be a little bit more up and down," Phillips said. "We think that overall, there's no volcano that has exploded, so it won't be colder than normal, but it may be normal to warmer than normal, that's where we're going right now."