From hurricanes to super storms: Canada’s top 10 weather stories of 2022
As 2022 wraps up, we’re pausing to think back to all the wild weather we’ve seen in Canada this year.
On Wednesday, December 21, Environment and Climate Change Canada shared its top 10 weather stories of 2022. Senior Climatologist David Phillips said 2022 looked at over 100 weather events that were both meteorologically significant and impactful for Canadians to come up with his top 10.
It was a year of “too much weather,” said Phillips.
“The evidence is becoming more conclusive that anthropogenic warming is playing a significant part in more frequent and extreme weather, leading to more weather disasters at home and abroad,” said Phillips.
“Climate change is about rare weather events becoming frequent, seasons becoming different lengths… You have to wonder…what will it be like in 30 years when we warm up three more degrees,” said Phillips.
Here are the top 10 weather stories of the year:
10. Three weekend January storms stress Atlantic Canada
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In a trilogy of storms, the Eastern provinces were pummeled by a trifecta of rain, wind, and snow.
9. Record-breaking cold in time for the holidays
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Some of the coldest air on planet Earth washed over Western and North Western Canada this holiday season.
8. Montreal swamped by humongous rain system
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Montreal got a month’s worth of rain in hours. “What we’re seeing now is the new-age flood,” said Phillips. “Not the river flood, but the street flood, the urban flood, and this will get more impactful as cities grow and the climate warms.”
7. Super storms track across the Prairies in July
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July was stormy, with lots of tornadoes and at least four supercell storms. The largest hailstone ever recorded, about the size of a DVD, was found, too. The storms also killed numerous livestock – one lightning bolt killed 28 cattle instantly.
6. A wintery spring in British Columbia (without the flood)
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Phillips said that spring in BC was “miserable,” dark and dank. “Vancouver had many days where not a minute of sun shone.”
5. Wildfires on two coasts
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BC’s wildfire season wasn’t as bad as in previous years, but the long-term health effects of breathing in smoke for months are dangerous. In 2022, there were 18 days of air quality warnings in BC due to fires in the province and Washington State.
On the East Coast, Newfoundland had its worst forest fire season in 60 years.
4. Return to hot and dry weather under the dome
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“We saw in the west millions of north Americans under excessive heat warnings in three provinces, three territories, and eight states,” said Phillips. In BC and Alberta, we called it “Hotumn” and “Aug-tober” because it felt more like summer than fall.
“In over 100 days, from mid-august on, Victoria and Vancouver hand a thimbleful of rain when they would usually get 100 mm,” said Phillips. It was wetter in Las Vegas and Phoenix.
It was warm in Eastern Canada, too, where the Bermuda dome pumped warm, dry air northward, leading to one of the warmest summers in years.
3. Manitoba’s drenching spring
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It was a wet year in Manitoba, where locals faced flood fatigue – eight weeks of bailing and bagging and manning water pumps. The wet wasn’t from a single storm or melt; it was a cluster of storms, and the geographical extent of it was historic.
2. Billion-dollar derecho rakes across Ontario and Quebec
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A weather system brought rain, hail, tornadoes, and downburst winds that come from the middle of the atmosphere straight down, and these winds took down massive century-old trees. The derechos targeted major cities like Windsor, London, Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City. Some were without power for a week. Eleven people were killed, and over a billion dollars of property was damaged.
1. Furious Fiona strikes Eastern Canada
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In the last week of September, Fiona, a category four hurricane, made a b-line for eastern Nova Scotia, morphing with another system and turning into a post-tropical depression, carrying hurricane-force winds of 165 km per hour.
It was one of the most powerful storms ever measured in Canada, bringing sustained heavy rains, powerful winds, and storm surges tearing into Canada.
Read more: Local emergencies declared as Hurricane Fiona wallops East Coast (VIDEOS)
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