ǿմý

Skip to main content

Wintry weather hits parts of Canada as a 'gentle reminder' of upcoming colder seasons

Share

While snowfall during the summer may seem unusual to southern Canadians, the North is well equipped for the snow expected to hit this week. 

The Weather Network is predicting a wet snowfall for parts of Nunavut on Wednesday night, as rising precipitation and colder-than-normal temperatures are expected. 

Iqaluit, Igloolik, Naujaat and Kugaaruk are some of the parts of Northern Canada experiencing low pressure that will likely bring temperatures to drop 2 to 5 degrees below normal overnight. According to , temperatures in August can reach as low as 2 degrees Celsius in some parts of the territory. However, Environment Canada meteorologist Sarah Hoffman said if the snow does fall it’ll likely be gone as quickly as it arrived.

“We're looking at above zero temperatures in Iqaluit, so it's gonna be really hard for snow to accumulate and persist,” she told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Wednesday.

While it may seem unusual to see an early snowfall this time of the year, especially since Canada has been experiencing warmer weather than usual recently, Hoffman said there’s always a chance for snow in the colder parts of the country.

“Calgary has had snow reported in every month of the year; June, July and August have all had snow reported. So it's not super uncommon in Canada for snow to happen even in the summer,” she said.

While the Farmer’s Almanac predicted earlier this month that Canada is expected to see record-breaking cold temperatures this winter, David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada, said these one-off events like earlier snowfall aren’t indicators of what the upcoming seasons will be like.

“It gives you no heads up for what’s in store for us. It could be an early winter, it could be a late winter but that’s certainly not governed by snow appearing in the high Arctic,” Phillips told CTVNews.ca on Wednesday in a phone interview.

Environment Canada has been reporting warmer temperatures for the majority of the country in September, Phillips said, so there’s still time to enjoy what’s left of summer while also preparing for the upcoming colder months.

“It's sort of a reminder for ‘you better get your snow tires on,’ ‘you better put away that lawn furniture.’ It's nature's way of giving us a little bit of a reminder,” he said.  

Correction

A previous verison of this story erroneously referred to Naujaat as Repulse Bay.

CTVNews.ca ǿմý

The province's public security minister said he was "shocked" Thursday amid reports that a body believed to be that of a 14-year-old boy was found this week near a Hells Angels hideout near Quebec City.

Shamattawa RCMP are searching for a missing six-year-old boy who hasn’t been seen since Wednesday morning.

B.C.'s police watchdog is investigating the death of a woman who was shot by the RCMP after allegedly barricading herself in a room with a toddler early Thursday morning.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault is calling on the Bloc Quebecois to topple the Trudeau government next Wednesday and trigger a federal election.

Local Spotlight

They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.

Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.

The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.

It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.

A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.

David Krumholtz, known for roles like Bernard the Elf in The Santa Clause and physicist Isidor Rabi in Oppenheimer, has spent the latter part of his summer filming horror flick Altar in Winnipeg. He says Winnipeg is the most movie-savvy town he's ever been in.

Edmontonians can count themselves lucky to ever see one tiger salamander, let alone the thousands one local woman says recently descended on her childhood home.

A daytrip to the backcountry turned into a frightening experience for a Vancouver couple this weekend.