If you want to know what kind of winter to expect across much of Canada, you’re out of luck — Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) is predicting above-seasonal temperatures in the eastern Arctic region, but elsewhere, the forecast is pretty up in the air.
The strongest predictions, which ECCC gave for the three-month period from December to February, were for warmer-than-normal temperatures in much of Nunavut, around Hudson Bay and across Northern Quebec and Labrador.
Some small parts of the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nova Scotia could see some colder-than-normal temperatures as well, while ECCC is predicting normal temperatures for some areas along B.C.’s coast, eastern Nova Scotia, and central and eastern Newfoundland.
But across vast areas of B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and southern parts of Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, ECCC wasn’t able to make a prediction one way or the other with confidence.
“Most of the map is white and that means confidence is low and any of the three outcomes are possible,” said Jennifer Smith, a national warning preparedness meteorologist with ECCC.
That’s due to some conflicting factors — specifically, climate change and La Niña.
According to Madalina Surcel, a climate extremes specialist with ECCC, we’re dealing with a weak La Niña this winter — the colder phase of the cyclical warming/cooling pattern part of the Pacific Ocean experiences, which can have a cooling effect on global temperatures.
This pattern tends to have a greater impact on temperatures in the west of the country, but its effects can extend as far as the Great Lakes, she pointed out.
While Smith says some parts of Canada — like western Canada and Yukon — have been experiencing a cold start to the winter as is typical in a La Niña year, she says the competing warming impact of climate change makes it difficult to anticipate long-term weather patterns for broad swaths of the country.
“The effect of the colder oceans sort of cancels the effects of climate change,” said Frédéric Fabry, an associate professor at McGill University specializing in atmospheric science and environment.
“That doesn’t mean that it’s automatically going to be an average [winter], but basically there is no strong signal that seems to be pushing this winter either way.”
Because winters have been warmer than normal in recent years however — like the record-setting 2023-2024 season, which was Canada’s warmest on record — Fabry says even normal temperatures could end up feeling colder to Canadians who have gotten used to above-average temperatures.
ECCC also says that some ocean waters are warmer than normal, and Fabry says this could feed winter storms that start in the West and push across the country, possibly making storms stronger.
On the precipitation front, the climate agency predicted above average precipitation in northwestern and western Canada — Alberta, Saskatchewan, parts of B.C., Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Outside of that area, the environment agency wasn’t able to predict precipitation amounts with certainty.
Scientists are keeping a close watch on the Pacific Ocean, where conditions are pointing toward a La Niña this fall.
That shift could have big impacts on B.C’s weather. Meteorologist Johanna Wagstaffe has been looking into this.
Climate agency now monitoring extreme precipitation
The climate agency also expanded its rapid extreme weather attribution system to include extreme precipitation events.
The ECCC’s extreme weather attribution system attempts to look at extreme weather events and assess how human-caused climate change played a role in them. The system — which mirrors attribution systems by others like World Weather Attribution — was first to analyze heat events starting in 2024, and was expanded to extreme cold events earlier this year.
Extreme events involving rain, freezing rain, sleet, hail and snow (any form of water that falls from the sky) will all be tracked, though ECCC says rainfall events tend to be the most severe.
Scientists at ECCC use climate models to compare the likelihood of the events occurring in our current climate, versus how likely the same event would have been in the climate of the 1800s, in order to determine how much human-caused climate change likely played a role.
Researchers found that 39 of 42 extreme precipitation events analyzed in Canada since June 2025 were more likely to occur because of climate change, while three others were classified as much more likely to occur.
The agency cited extreme rainfall in Happy Valley-Goose Bay on Nov. 1 as an example of an event made much more likely because of climate change.
However, Surcel says the agency hasn’t triggered an extreme event as of yet for the current flooding in B.C.’s Fraser Valley because while the flooding was intense, it was localized.
Overall, Fabry says the expansion of the attribution system could help Canadians understand the role of climate change in their lives.
“We used to think that weather is weather and this is it. But as climate is changing and weather patterns are changing, we are realizing that it affects us in ways that we didn’t quite realize,” Fabry said.
When weather events that are likely influenced by climate change disrupt daily life or wipe out infrastructure, Fabry says it’s important from an education perspective for regular people to know that climate change was probably a factor.
www.cbc.ca (Article Sourced Website)
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