WATCH: With more than a month to go until the start of winter, Parts of Canada and the U.S. are well below freezing and covered in a blanket of snow. Reid Feist and Jackson Proskow report.
TORONTO – It’s a perfect illustration of how interconnected weather is across our planet.
People across the Prairies and northern Ontario and Quebec are getting an early taste of winter-like weather. What’s responsible for the deep freeze started out a week ago near Guam in the Pacific Ocean.
Typhoon Nuri — in the Pacific Ocean on Oct. 30 — made its way through the Philippine Sea, north off the coast of Japan and then across the North Pacific and towards Alaska.
When it reached Alaska, on Nov. 7, well, things just went downhill from there.
Interacting with the jet stream, it funnelled frigid Arctic air into central Canada.
In Calgary and Edmonton, temperatures were a low -13 C Monday morning. The normal temperatures are near 0 C. In Regina, Monday’s forecasted high is -12C with little change for the next week.
READ MORE: Calgary weather: Snow and chilly temperatures to continue
“People hear the analogy about the butterfly flapping its wings in Japan causing a little disturbance,” Geoff Coulson, warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada said. “A bit of an exaggeration, but it really does speak to the linkages involved in forecasting weather on this planet. It’s what the oceans are doing, it’s what the atmosphere is doing and storm systems in certain parts of the world.”
“Something going on in one part of the world can definitely have impacts on what’s happening in other parts of the world. It may not be immediate, it may be over the course of a number of days.”
The jet stream, similar to a fluid, is affected by disturbances. And Nuri was a great disturbance in the flow.
“You can see it on any of the maps… The jet stream diving down well south,” Coulson said. “It’s a jet-stream pattern that mimics what we had for a chunk of the winter last year.”
Of course, Coulson is referring to last winter that produced some of the coldest temperatures regions had ever seen.
READ MORE: Weather challenge – Who had the worst winter in Canada?
This week, the system is affecting regions from northern British Columbia, straight to Winnipeg, where temperatures are almost 15 C colder than normal.
“It does appear that we’re locking into a pattern that we saw last winter, that we’re in this depth of cold air really anywhere from east of the Rocky Mountains right through until you almost get to the Maritimes,” Coulson said.
And once the system becomes established, it doesn’t look to be moving anywhere.
But don’t panic: this doesn’t necessarily mean we’re in for a repeat of last winter.
“Pretty much every winter we get these cold snaps,” Coulson said. “The notable thing about last winter was that it never broke down, there were never any gaps.”
However, it does mean that, for the short-term, the cold is likely to last a week or more.
The coldest parts will be the Prairies. In Ontario, the Great Lakes provide some moderation, keeping the particularly cold air from reaching southern Ontario. After Tuesday, it will be colder than normal, but only by a few degrees.
However, over the next few days, northwestern Ontario will be battling the snow.
Environment Canada has already issued snowfall warnings in Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, Wawa and surrounding areas.
And Nuri’s influence isn’t just being felt here at home. In the United States, the central plains are being hit with their first snowstorm. Temperatures are dipping to far below normal even in the south. The National Weather Service has issued freeze watches for parts of Texas and New Mexico.
Coulson said that the coming weeks is not necessarily indicative of what winter will bring.
“How long it’s going to last and what this could bode for Christmas, January and February, I think it’s too early to tell. But it’s definitely something we’re going to keep a close eye on.”
Click here to see real-time wind patterns across the planet.
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