Submitted by Bill Caulfeild-Browne
This is shaping up to be a very warm year. Only the month of May was (slightly) cooler than normal. August was 1.4C above normal, very much like July. Our warmest day was the 15th at 28.6C and the coolest was the 28th at 11.8C. As I mentioned last month, it’s the low temperatures that are keeping our averages high despite having no record-breaking hot days.
Subjectively I thought August was a very nice month with lots of consecutive warm days. Only during the last week did we see a few days not reaching 20C. Sunshine was abundant, though so was fog from time to time.
Rainfall was sparse until the 26th when we got 20mm. in just a few hours and our forest fire fears began to abate. The month as a whole gave us a total of 57mm. against a norm of 77mm.
Winds were predominantly from the south, normal at this time of year. We did have some very gusty days – a high of 44 km/hr on the 8th and 50 km/hr on the 23rd.
Much of the Province was similar to us, with some notable exceptions. Northern Ontario had some record rainfall – Sudbury had 156mm. against a norm of 90mm. Given the forest fire danger this was a blessing.
Niagara also had a good soaking on August 2nd, causing widespread flooding, power outages and serious damage to homes and farms. Ten sinkholes were reported. On the 12th Ottawa/Gatineau got hit with violent wind gusts and uprooted trees leaving nearly 40,000 homes without power. Once again the major storms passed north or south of our Peninsula. Some of that was because of the stabilizing influence of the relatively cool waters of the lake – and some was just good luck.
