Canada is in for a relatively gentle autumn, according to The Weather Network’s latest outlook, as a potentially record-strength El Niño looks set to stretch the milder weather and push winter’s arrival later than usual.
September and October will still feature the familiar mix of warm stretches interrupted by cooler, stormier periods, the network’s three-month forecast indicates.
Overall, conditions are expected to lean warmer and, across large parts of the country, drier than average as the months advance, said senior meteorologist Doug Gillham.
“Winter is probably going to wait on the sidelines for a while,” Gillham noted in an interview with the Weather Network.
The key driver is El Niño, the recurring climate pattern linked to unusually warm patches of water in the equatorial Pacific.
Several forecasting centres now project this event could rank among the most intense on record.
The picture for Canada’s fall is not entirely negative, Gillham explained.
El Niño typically steers the main storm track farther south into the United States, allows milder Pacific air to dominate much of the country, and makes it harder for bitter Arctic air to surge southward.
That setup could translate into fewer typical autumn storms, a softer transition into winter, and a quieter Atlantic hurricane season.
Still, an exceptionally strong El Niño brings added uncertainty and the potential for unexpected turns in the forecast, he cautioned.
“Don’t be lulled into a sense of, ‘oh we’re just going to have a dry fall and we don’t have to worry about any storms, fewer storms doesn’t mean that the storms that occur won’t pack a punch,” Gillham said.
In Alberta, milder temperatures are forecast to prevail, though brief cold snaps will interrupt the pattern at times.
Most of the Prairies are expected to stay on the dry side, aside from near-average precipitation in southern Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba.
While it’s unlikely that wintry weather will lock in early across the region, early tastes of winter are still possible. This is Alberta, after all, where the average first snowfall arrives around Sept. 27 in Calgary and Oct. 1 in Edmonton.
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