Submitted by Bill Caulfeild-Browne
That proverbial saying usually applies to March, when one can expect stormy winter weather at the beginning and more springlike conditions at the end. November this year gave us the reverse: lamb-like early Fall weather at the start and a dose of lion-like winter at the end.
As I said in my last column, the month started out in a most unusual fashion. Early on we got double-digit temperatures, both day and night. The coolest was 10.1C on the 6th and the warmest in Tobermory was 17.3 on the 9th. In Lion’s Head it reached 24C! Moreover, we got mostly dry sunny days. This is unheard of for November and records were broken all over Southern Ontario.
However, by the twelfth we reverted to normal November weather. The only double-digit day we got was on the 20th when the mercury struggled up to 11.1C. To counter-balance that we got our coldest night of the season on the 24th, at -2.4C. Overall, the mean temperature for the month was 5.4C, a full 2.6C above normal. But November has always been a highly variable month and four of the last 25 years have been even warmer – November 2009, for example, was 3.5C above normal. Contrast that with last year when we were 2.6C below normal. What a swing.
It was a month of windstorms too. On the 15th high winds from the south caused power cuts right across the province and we did not escape. Here in the Northern Bruce, though, we got off easy – winds here gusted to 70 kph but St. Catherines saw a peak speed of 141 kph. and Windsor recorded 111 kph. Much of the worst stayed to the south.
The “out like lion” began on the 30th with another storm. Northerly winds gusted to nearly 70 kph. and the average speed of 43 kph. lasted for two full days, blowing us into December. There were power cuts once again along with local property damage.
Precipitation was a little higher than average, at 78 mm. Virtually all of it was rain. We had only traces of snow, unlike Southern Ontario which got 15-20 cms in most places on the 22nd. We saw very little in Tobermory on the 30th but Wiarton got 16 cm. It’s all a matter of geography – when strong northerly winds pick up moisture from Lake Huron it doesn’t land for many kilometres. We stay (for the moment) under the blanket that falls further south. We get our major snowfalls from south-westerly winds.
So it was a highly unsettled month, as November usually is. Environment Canada is expecting near-normal conditions for December.
