March 11, 2010
Toronto Star

TORONTO — Environment Canada says the winter we just experienced was one of the warmest and driest across the country since 1948.

Photo: With the Museum of Civilization behind them, early morning joggers run across the Alexandria Bridge in Ottawa on Sunday. Temperatures were set to hit 8 degrees and remain above freezing for the upcoming week. (PAWEL DWULIT / CP)

The national average temperature was 4 degrees Celsius above normal and precipitation was 22 per cent below normal.

This year, parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario had 60 per cent less precipitation than normal.

Senior climatologist David Phillips says the weather was ``quite spectacular,'' adding, ``we've never seen a winter like this.''

He says records were shattered from B.C. to Baffin Island to the Great Lakes and it was the warmest winter on record in the Arctic.

Environment Canada also says that of the 10 warmest years, four have occurred within the last decade. Eleven of the last 20 winters are listed among the warmest.

The reason for this year's warmer and drier winter is El Nino, a shift in the winds and ocean currents in the Pacific and a thinning of the polar ice cap.

``In the last three to four years the ice in the Arctic has thinned,'' Phillips said.

``And that means the refrigeration at the top of the world is not cooling like it did in the past.'' (Toronto Star)

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