With the official start of winter not far away and the first snowfalls of the year already under our belts, it’s time to start thinking about what the rest of the season has in store. Are we in for a teeth-rattling, snow-packed winter? Or something a bit milder?
According to Bill Merryfield, a research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), it will likely be something in the middle. This winter, we’re entering the fifth La Niña period in six years, he shares—a “fairly unusual” occurrence that hasn’t been seen since the late 1990s.
In your average La Niña year, cooler sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean lead to altered weather patterns worldwide. But in Canada, says Merryfield, the phenomenon typically leads to colder winter weather, while El Niño years bring warmer temps.
That is, in a world without global warming. “While La Niña tilts the odds toward a colder winter, at the same time, long-term warming tilts the odds toward a warmer winter,” says Merryfield. “Forty or even twenty years ago, the cold influence from La Niña would have usually won out over global warming, but currently, those influences are more or less balancing each other.”
As of now, scientists at ECCC are predicting pretty even odds for a cooler or warmer winter, but conditions will vary depending on the region, says Merryfield.
According to him, the effects of La Niña typically hit hardest in Western Canada, specifically the Rocky Mountains and eastern Prairie regions, which experience colder weather and increased snowfall. Similar effects are also seen in Ontario’s Great Lakes region, but again, global warming would likely offset La Niña’s intensity.
Situated farthest from Pacific waters, Eastern Canada tends to be the least impacted by La Niña conditions. “La Niña is less of an influence, and the warming of Canada’s climate, combined with warmer-than-usual temperatures in Hudson Bay and other coastal ocean regions, are tilting the odds toward a warmer-than-normal winter out East,” says Merryfield. Even more susceptible to warmer winter conditions will be northern regions such as Newfoundland and Labrador, northern Quebec, and Nunavut, he adds.
With the likelihood of a warmer or colder winter being roughly 50/50, the jury is still out on whether we’ll be shivering in our boots or ditching our puffers on the slopes this year. But one thing is almost certain: per tradition, Canadians will complain about the weather.
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