May winds began long transition to summer
ONTARIO — Gardeners and growers won’t like it much, but the weather forecast for the next two weeks calls for seasonal temperatures — but in terms of precipitation, somewhat drier-than-normal conditions are expected.
No clear temperature and precipitation trends are present for the second half of the month.
That’s the early prediction from Gerald Cheng, meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Looking back to May, he said as we turned the page on April, temperatures increased considerably.
In contrast to April’s Big Chill, temperatures in May ranged from warmer-than-normal to normal for most of the province, except for portions of the northeast and far northeast of the province, where temperatures were below normal values.
In the Far North, temperatures were in the normal range, while they were above-normal (by 1 to 4°C) in southern and northwestern Ontario.
Cheng writes in the monthly bulletin that during the month, Ontarians experienced periods of cooler temperatures, with records showing daily anomalies of -6 to -10°C compared to normal values.
He said the cool air made way for the warmer air around the 21st, when positive daily temperatures anomalies (+10 to +14°C) were observed.
In terms of precipitation, in May, conditions ranged from drier-than-normal to wetter-than-normal.
Portions of northern Ontario continued to experience drier conditions (with anomalies of -10 to -50%), but not to the extent of what we saw in April (-75 to -100%), and other portions experienced wetter-than-normal conditions (+10 to +50%). Southern Ontario, which had received above-normal precipitation amounts in April, was drier-than-normal in May.
Some of the notable precipitation events that occurred this month are described in the Severe Weather section.
Severe Weather
The most significant event of May was the sharp cold front that swept across southern Ontario on May 4.
The cold front generated damaging winds, with peak wind gusts reaching 111 km/h at Windsor, 119 km/h at Toronto Pearson, 126 km/h at the Hamilton Airport, and 96 km/h at the Ottawa Airport.
With the exception of the one from the Ottawa Airport, those were all record peak wind gusts for the month. Toronto Pearson briefly suspended their flight operations that evening.
The winds caused widespread power outages as trees and branches fell onto power lines; over 300,000 households were without power at one point. The wind ripped off roof shingles and toppled fences.
Garbage and recycling bins were scattered everywhere. Homes and cars were smashed by uprooted trees or other projectiles. Construction cranes collapsed in some places. Some high-rise tenants in Toronto experienced swaying from the power of the wind and patio furniture was seen blowing in the air amidst buildings in the city.
A downed tree resulted in two fatalities just outside of Toronto and another person was killed while clearing a downed power line in Hamilton.
The second weekend of the month, May 11 to 13, was a wet one for extreme southwestern Ontario.
Thunderstorms gave Windsor 58 mm of rain and there were reports of 60 to 85 mm in Blenheim, just southeast of Chatham-Kent. This prompted the city of Windsor to close all sports fields on the Monday following the weekend.
It was quiet in Northern Ontario in terms of precipitation although thundershowers brought 35 to 50 mm of rain to Dryden, Kenora, and areas just northeast of Sudbury on May 18.
The rain was nothing out of the ordinary, but brought temporary relief to northwestern Ontario as they were dealing with forest fires, due to the lack of rain and snow in the previous months. In relation, a special air quality statement was issued for three days (May 21 to 24) for Sandy Lake and Pikangikum due to the elevated pollution levels from the forest fires in the area.
- Hear the latest federal Agroclimate conditions report for May 23, 2018. Click on the following link to listen to or download an audio clip of the latest agroclimate conditions http://www.agr.gc.ca/eng/?id=1461240548324
