Heather Latter
Even though it’s now August, residents of the Rainy River District are still waiting for the warm weather of summer to arrive.
According to Bill Laidlaw of Signal Weather Services, the overall temperature for the month of July saw an average of 3.5 degrees below normal.
“So if you think it’s cold, you’re right—It’s been a cold month,” he stressed, although citing the cool temperatures have not yet set a record.
“But it’s getting on the outside of extreme,” he noted. “Because two-thirds of the year should be within a degree, plus or minus, of our average temperature, so this is pushing it. We’re not setting any record yet, but we’re pushing towards that envelope.”
But the same can’t be said south of the boarder. The Minnesota Climatology Working Group reported that their preliminary numbers show that July will finish as the third coldest July on record for Minnesota, with International Falls shattering its coldest July on record with an average temperature of 58.8 F, which broke the old record of 59.4 set in 1992.
However, Laidlaw explained cooler weather in the Rainy River District is not unusual.
“We were kind of like this last year and we did a spell like this three or four years back where we started out really hot in May and then late May it went into this and rained and was cold for a month and a half, almost to July,” he recalled.
And despite what seemed like a month of showers and thunderstorms, Laidlaw explained the rainfall has actually been below normal for July.
“Average rain for the month 94.7 mm. We’ve had 42.3 mm out at the airport,” Laidlaw noted on Friday morning. (Environment Canada recorded an additional 30 mm of rain that evening.)
“The total amount of rainfall is low, but the rain days, we average 13-14 days a month we had measurable rain and we’re bang on. We’re running the proper amount of rain days, but we have not had the amount of rain we should have in the Fort Frances area,” he added.
Kim Jo Bliss at the Emo Agricultural Research Station agrees that July has been both cool and dry.
She recorded a total of 76.5 mm of rainfall for the month of July.
“Things can change quickly,” she admitted. “If we get an inch-and-a-half of rain it can put you back into normal levels rather quickly, but it’s timing too … If you get it all on one day, it doesn’t do you any good for the farmers either.”
She noted even though there is some moisture, the farmers still need heat to make things grow, as well.
“We do have some pretty good grain crops in the district, but with the dryness, it could be a little harder on people’s pastures. But again, it varies,” Bliss expressed.
But Laidlaw explained he doesn’t know when the warm weather will return to the Rainy River District
“This could break at anytime—we don’t know,” he indicated. “Whether it’s going to break in August, we have of way of knowing. The trouble is with these stable types of things, the longer they’re stable the more they tend to stay that way and then when they do break, it’s a big change. When this thing does break, the change could be very dramatic.”
But why have the temperatures been so low? Laidlaw offered up the scientific explanation.
“Basically because of the way the earth is situated in relation to the sun, is we’ve always got too much heat at the equator and not enough at the poles, so we’re always trying to balance that out by moving the air northward,” he noted. “Conversely, cold air has to flow south right next to it.
“If you look around the northern hemisphere, there is space for five and-a-half of these patterns, waves of north moving, followed by south moving air around the globe. Now if you think about it, five and-a-half, that doesn’t work because that means that is inherently unstable. So it’s always shifting. That’s why things are always shifting,” he explained.
Laidlaw indicated people will always be either in the warmer area or the cooler depending on whether the heat moving north or the cold air moving south.
“Very seldom do you actually show up right on the average temperature—you’re usually hotter than average or colder than average depending on where you are,” he voiced. “So this inherently unstable flow around the globe, every once in a while it gets into a stable pattern and this is what’s happened.”
He explained the hot air has been flowing north over Alberta and British Columbia, which is why they are seeing soaring temperatures and battling forest fires.
“And it’s been stuck that way for almost a month, while we’ve been stuck in the cold flow,” Laidlaw stressed. “Be thankful this isn’t January. It would be minus-40.”
And given the width of North America, he explained there is always room for a wave and-a-half over the continent.
“So either you got heat flowing north on the two coasts and cold air flowing south in the middle or you’ve got two colds and one warm,” he cited. “When we’ve got a heat wave, then invariably it’s cold on the west coast and it’s cold on the east coast.”
But he stressed the current weather in the Rainy River District has no bearing on what kind of fall and winter we can expect.
“That’s another kettle of fish,” he voiced. “Overall effects of climate change in Northwestern Ontario is the onset of winter tends to be getting a little delayed. If anything the overall track record the fall is getting longer than it used to be, but that’s the only thing we’ve noticed so far. Every year is different.”
