Submitted by Bill Caulfeild-Browne
On average, most of Ontario was a bit warmer than normal, though one has to be careful with averages. The south, around Windsor and London, was slightly cooler while the further north you went, the warmer it got relative to long-term means. Kapuskasing was 1.7C above normal and here in Tobermory we were 1.6C above, making this one of the warmer months of June I have recorded.
We started off where May left us, with a week of highs in the low 20s; the next two weeks were somewhat cooler, but the last week returned to summer with highs in the high 20s. The warmest day was 25th at 27.2C. The coolest the mercury sank to was 8.5C on the 14th.
Despite most of Southern Ontario having average or above average rainfall, we had only 23 mm., about 36% of what we’d expect. The major precipitation events simple slid south of us – those areas got plenty while Tobermory remained in drought conditions.
Fortunately the County and the Municipality recognized this and a complete fire ban is still in force. As of July 5th, when I’m writing this, we haven’t had a real rainstorm since June 12th – and the temperature continues to be very hot. July 4th hit 31.7C, further exacerbating the fire danger.
Winds were very light all month; the average speed was a mere 4 kms/hr and the highest gust was only 39 kms/hr. The lake remained very placid.
Sunshine was copious but often hazy thanks to the smoke from wildfires in Quebec and northeastern Ontario. June treated us to some of the worst air quality we’ve ever had; Tuesday the 6th was probably the peak for us, but it continued to be bad both east and west of us.
It looks like it might be a pretty warm summer – and warm year – thanks to El Niño. Climatologists are suggesting this could be the warmest year ever recorded for the planet and judging by the increasing number of climate-based catastrophes taking place, I’m inclined to think they’re right.
Let us all hope that a wildfire on our Peninsula doesn’t prove it.
