Canada’s Top Ten Weather Stories for 2009

Nationally, there was nothing exceptional about the temperature or precipitation in 2009. Crunch all the statistics and it averaged a half degree warmer and a meager two per cent drier than normal. But dig a little deeper – separate those statistics out – and there’s nothing “normal” about this year’s weather at all. The seasons were out of whack across the country, with new records or near records in every region. Sometimes, the weather was a marvel of contrasts, with some areas experiencing their wettest and driest periods in the same year, floods and droughts, or the warmest season in half a century along with the coldest in a century. If you ask most Canadians, they’ll tell you that winter went on far too long. Spring felt more like winter, what summer there was occurred in September and November was the October we never got.

The following Top Canadian Weather Stories for 2009 are rated from one to ten based on factors that include the impact they had on Canada and Canadians, the extent of the area affected, economic effects and longevity as a top news story.

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Photo: Photolux Commercial Studios © Environment Canada, 2002