Record-breaking warmth is being felt across southern Ontario on Friday and the warmer-than-normal weather pattern is expected to continue through at least the first week of January, Global News meteorologist Anthony Farnell says.
Among the cities with with new record high temperatures are London, Hamilton, Toronto and Ottawa, Farnell said.
Toronto beat out the old record of 10.2 C set just three years ago.
“What makes this warmth even more incredible is that it comes exactly one week after the historic blizzard that shut airports and closed major highways for days,” Farnell said.
The system that moved through last week also caused windchills to reach the -20s and -30s.
“It was almost as if that monster storm used up all the cold Arctic air that was blanketing North America,” Farnell said.
“A better explanation has to do with a major pattern change that occurred across the northern hemisphere. The Arctic blocking which pushed cold air south into the mid-latitudes for most of December was replaced with a stronger polar vortex over the North Pole.”
That has bundled the cold air together and has created a stronger jet stream in the south, Farnell said, bringing very heavy rain and strong winds to the west coast.
“The rest of us are benefitting from the milder Pacific air that has made it all the way to the east coast,” he said.
The warmer-than-normal weather will continue through the first week of January across southern Ontario, with high temperatures in the upper single digits and lows mainly above freezing, Farnell said.
“This, combined with several rain days, will melt much of the remaining snow on the ground. Some local flooding is possible in areas that still have a significant snow pack,” he warned.
But the warm temperatures won’t last, he said, and there are indications that much colder and snowier weather will return, though not until the second half of January.
“Until then, make the most of the very unusually long mild spell,” Farnell said.