Balmy winter bows out on record high as spring bluster returns
Posted Mar 22, 2010 05:38:50 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
What a week it was!
The last week of winter 2010 will be remembered for warm weather, bright sunshine, no rain, and nary a snowflake in sight.
From Monday, March 15 to Saturday the 20, five of the six days broke daytime high records – all by more than two degrees.
News 95.7 meteorologist Richard Zurawski says Saturday was the most impressive, as the daytime high reached 20 degrees – breaking the previous high set back in 1976.
“The record was broken by a full eight degrees,” he said. “It’s totally unprecedented.
Zurawski says breaking a weather record is very significant.
“Some of the records are 40, 50, 60 years old and of course there have been continuous records in this part of the world for almost 100 years,” he said.
He says climate change could explain the warm winter we’ve had, while the U.S. has received record snowfall.
“Things change within the ocean,” he said. “Places become more turbulent, they get more storms.”
He says with those storms you wind up with extremes, which is what we’re seeing.
Zurawski points out it’s too soon to write off miserable weather – a point borne out by the forecast for this week, which has generated a severe weather bulletin from Environment Canada.
Zurawski says a cold front and low pressure system is moving into the neighbourhood, which will bring strong winds and lots of rain in the next 24 hours – followed by flurries later in the week.
“That low-pressure system’s going to change everything,” he said. “With that cold front moving through, we’re going to end up with north-westerly switching over to north-easterly outbreak, and you know what north-easterly storms are like.”
Zurawski says as hard as it may be to bear, this week’s weather is actually more typical of early spring in the Maritimes.
