Here's Environment Canada's winter forecast for northwestern Ontario — snowy, but not too brutal
CBC News | Posted: December 2, 2021 4:28 PM | Last Updated: December 2, 2021
Despite recent mild temperatures, Environment Canada climatologist guarantees white Christmas in Thunder Bay
Don't let the recent mild temperatures fool you — there will be plenty snow to shovel in northwestern Ontario this winter.
"I sense that this winter is going to be a snowy winter," David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, said Thursday. "You're going to do more shoveling, plowing and pushing. People in northwestern Ontario are going to be in better shape than they normally would be."
But there's some good news in the forecast, too, Phillips said.
"I don't think it's going to be the winter from hell in terms of punishing frostbite," he said. "I think [it will be] a typical kind of winter, but but not too brutal."
Thunder Bay has had an easy time of it so far, Phillips said. While other places in northwestern Ontario — such as Sioux Lookout — have seen dozens of centimetres of snow, very little has fallen on Thunder Bay.
WATCH | Take a look at that first big snowstorm from early November
"It was like a heat bubble over [Thunder Bay]," Phillips said. "Instead of getting 20 to 40 centimetres of snow, you got 55 millimetres of rain."
"And that was because Lake Superior is like a hot tub," he said. "It is just warming the air, and preventing that cold Arctic air from getting established."
But the snow won't stay away for too much longer. In fact, Thunder Bay can expect a white Christmas this year.
"I guarantee it," Phillips said. "I go to the bank on it."
"This is not like Toronto or Vancouver," he said. "There's like a 10 per cent chance of a white Christmas there. This is a done deal."
Snow on the way
That means, Phillips said, two centimetres of snow on the ground at 7 a.m. on Christmas Day.
"That is the definition that we have in Canada," he said. "We are the snowiest country in the world."
"A perfect Christmas Day ... is snow on the ground, and snow in the air, like a Christmas card look," Phillips said. "And you have a really good chance of having that."
In fact, the snow could start arriving sooner rather than later, Phillips said, with flurries expected on four of the next seven days
"Temperatures are clearly going to be, around the clock, below freezing," he said. "So you're not going to lose that. "
"When you're not getting the snow now, I think people begin to worry, will this be the year without winter?" Phillips said. "No, we've never cancelled winter in northwestern Ontario."