What does the warm winter mean for spring in Ottawa?

Spring officially arrives at 11:06 p.m. today. What can Ottawa expect this year?

Spring officially arrives at 11:06 p.m. today. What can Ottawa expect this year?

After one of the warmest winters on record, including the first without a single day where the temperature reached -20 C or below, Environment and Climate Change Canada is predicting a warmer than average spring.

But senior climatologist David Phillips told Newstalk 580 CFRA's Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron on Monday that the season is going to start out cold.

"One would guess that, hey, it looks like a warmer than normal spring, but this is the time of the year of the duking out between winter wanting to hold on and summer wanting to get a foothold and we're going to have to play with that for the next week or so," he explained.

Ottawa has already seen warmer than average temperatures this month, with seven days of highs above 10 C, four of which set temperature records. The average high for this time of year is between 2 and 3 C. The forecast for this coming week includes highs around that seasonal mark or slightly colder with a chance of flurries mid-week.

"This coming week looks certainly different than the early summer weather we got last week," said Phillips. "We're going to have to deal with some snow; not bury you snow, just kind of flurries, teasers, nuisance kind of snow. You can't ski on it or use it for anything. Freezing temperatures, highs of -2 rather than double-digit temperatures last week. So, put up with that, and then April, May and June, our forecasts are saying warmer than normal."

The average mean temperature for March 2024 as of the 17th is 3.4 C, more than five degrees warmer than the average mean for the first 17 days of March 2023. February was more than four degrees warmer than average.