Because of an El Nino year, British Columbia is getting adverse weather, while Southern Ontario has a mild winter so far. This is despite some early snow squalls on Southern Ontario.This mild weather is more widespread though. The CBC reports that no major storm fronts are on the way, and hence Christmas is expected to be "green" (as opposed to "white") in many parts of the country. This even affects cities that always got a white Christmas throughout their recorded history, like Thunder Bay Ontario, and Quebec City.

No sooner that I wrote about a warm and dry winter expected in Canada because of El Nino that we had our first snow fall in the season.Yesterday, there was a snow squall with significant accumulation on roof tops and patches of grass. Today, there are still patches of snow on the ground, although most of it melted since the ground is not frozen yet.It felt like the dead of winter in January, but it was only October 13. This is very unusual for this time of the year. The CBC called it "historic", and the magnitude of it in the Niagara penninsula was huge. The town of Fort Erie had 30 cm of snow causing it to was shut down, including schools and business. Power was also disrupted for up to 155,000 customers.

Well, the weather here is often variable, as I occasionally write about it.Here is another example:On May 21, there was wet snow in Dundalk, an hour north of here. Some people had to scrape their windshields as if it is January.On May 22, on Victoria Day, it was +5C with really chilly wind as if it is October or November. I had to wear a winter coat on that  day.On May 29 and 30, it was +33C and extremely hot and humid.On May 31, severe thunderstorms caused flooding in parts of Waterloo (knee deep water), as well as lightening that struck several areas causing power outages and even a few fires.  

The CBC web site has background information on many topic. It is often concise and informative.

Here is an article on the various kinds of H2O below zero that we Canadians get here.

Resource 

• CBC: Forces of Nature: Snow. 

Southern Ontario has been enjoying a nice few weeks with mild weather. Not only has the snow on the ground thawed like it sometimes does in mid January, but the mild weather has spanned the good part of three or four weeks. What is unusual is that the thaw started on the first day of winter (Dec 21), before which we got three snow storms in a row very early in the season. In Mississauga last Wednesday, there was no snow on the ground to be noticed at all. Toronto is enjoying record mild temperatures.