With the official start to spring just two weeks away, it seems Toronto is almost out of the woods from having experienced much of a typical winter season in the city.
Despite a few cold plunges throughout January and February, this winter hardly had any snow and has actually broke a number of temperature records, and it is now confirmed it was also the warmest meteorological winter EVER for Toronto.
Based on statistics from Environment Canada, temperatures taken at Toronto Pearson International Airport had a mean average of 0.3 C over the course of the season, which were taken from December 1 through February 29.
This makes it the warmest winter since records began back in 1937!
February alone averaged around 0.2 C according to a report by The Weather Network, which is much warmer than the previous high of -0.2 C set in 2017.
On February 28, the airport recorded its second-warmest February day ever, reaching a comfortably balmy high of 16.5 C. Last month’s warmth can mainly be attributed to El Niño, which saw the formation of persistent upper-level ridges over Central Canada.
This coupled with a storm track over the western and central Great Lakes helped put us on the warmer side of close storms, which helped boost temperatures even further according to the report.
The Weather Network also concludes the entire world just had its hottest 12-month period on record, with more warm temperature extremes likely to come as the atmosphere’s baseline temperatures continue to rise.