It may feel like summer across parts of Canada weekend, but things are cooling off in a hurry up north.
Canada just recorded its first -20°C reading of the season on Friday, an achievement that arrived just over a week after the country experienced the season’s first -10°C temperature.
The bitter chill is a reminder to savour fall for as long as possible.
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Alert, Nunavut, wins the prize for the first -20°C recorded in Canada this season.
Sitting a little north of 82°N latitude at the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, Alert is the northernmost continuously inhabited place on Earth. It’s tough to get any closer to the North Pole without taking a swim in the Arctic Ocean.
The temperature at Alert dipped to a frigid -21°C on Friday, Sept. 27, with an even colder reading of -23.5°C early Saturday morning. A brisk northwesterly wind sent the wind chill dipping all the way down to -30.
Such frigid temperatures aren’t long for the world—at least not yet, anyway. Readings across far Northern Canada will rebound to more seasonable levels by Sunday.
We’ll see temperatures rise to one degree above freezing on Sunday afternoon in Resolute, Nunavut, while folks over in Inuvik, N.W.T., will see a high of 2°C with a chance for snow.
Low temperatures dipping into the -20s across the Far North is about right on schedule for this time of year.
Based on historical averages, most of Nunavut would typically see their first -20°C morning over the next couple of weeks.
But what about the rest of Canada? Temperatures are slowly falling across the country as the seasons change. But rest assured that you’re still likely a long way off from seeing your first -20°C of the season.
We usually have to wait until December for the first reading in the -20s across much of the country. Frigid air masses descending on the Prairies typically send temperatures plummeting to -20°C in both Edmonton and Saskatoon around the first week of the month.
You have to wait closer to Christmas to record the season’s first -20°C in Ottawa and Montreal. It usually takes a January cold snap to send temperatures plunging that low around Toronto, while it’s exceedingly rare to see such a cold temperature on the other side of the country in Vancouver.
