Where is that white stuff?
There’s hardly any snow on the ground in Toronto and almost no chance of getting any soon.
Last year, a single storm dumped about 25 centimetres of snow, crippling the city. And usually by this time, Pearson International Airport would have recorded about 80 centimetres of snow.
At 32.4 centimetres, we aren’t even anywhere close this year.
Of course, our lack of snow is particularly noteworthy when compared with cities south of the border — and nowhere more than Washington, D.C., where the latest in a succession of crippling storms has raised the seasonal snow tally to 140 centimetres, shattering a record set in 1899.
If there’s anything to blame for Ontario’s lack of snow it’s El Nino, reminded Geoff Coulson, meteorologist with Environment Canada.
An El Nino year is characterized by slightly warmer ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific that cause a shift in the global weather patterns. One of the impacts on Ontario is that winters tend to be milder and drier, said Coulson.
El Nino is also the reason places like Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia are getting walloped by blizzards, said Coulson.
“Instead of moving to the Great Lakes and impacting us, the big winter storm systems developed in the foothills of the Rockies are moving east and affecting states like Illinois, Indiana and Washington,” he said.
Toronto isn’t likely to see snow for the next two weeks or so, said Coulson.
“There might be some flurry activity in the Greater Toronto Area, but overall it’s going to be dry for the next seven to 14 days.”
