It’s about to feel a lot more like May than early March over the coming days.
And while that’s music to the ears of summer lovers, it sounds more like alarm bells to environmental activists.
Early rising temperatures come at a cost, one that we’re likely to pay for sooner than later said James Bow, communications officer at the rare Charitable Research Reserve.
“This isn’t normal winter weather,” Bow said.
“As pleasant as the days have been, it’s something we’ll pay for in the summer.”
There no better example of the unseasonable temperatures than over the past week.
It started off warm, then came the cold and now a high of 17 is expected on Monday.
Bow points to several concerns that come to mind when considering these swings in weather.
The first being the lack of snow pack on the ground. When snow melts too early in the year, it leaves limited moisture later on for soil to absorb.
“The soil is a sponge, the longer it doesn’t have the snow over top of it and the earlier the big melt comes, the longer it has to dry out,” Bow said.
“You would expect from years past there would be a good amount of snow on the ground right now. The big melt would normally be in the middle of March.”
Sap has also started to run from the trees Bow noticed, half joking that the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival isn’t scheduled until early April.
“The thing with the sap running early is our trees are going to bud early,” he said.
“Migratory birds will be impacted if they come into an area expecting foliage to be a certain way. If the flowers bloom early, for the creatures that come to pollinate those areas, the flowers will be gone. It’s a growing concern.”
Frank Seglenieks, coordinator of the weather station at the University of Waterloo, agrees this winter has seen its fair share of fluctuating temperatures.
Aside from environmental impacts, the rising and dipping above and below freezing can cause other issues like potholes on the road and foundational cracks in buildings.
“It’s hard to measure the effect,” Seglenieks said.
“There’s that magic number when it goes above and below freezing with water, it can create issues with cracks in the road. Ice expansion can cause problems with potholes. Will those be worse due to the temperatures? It’s possible.”
According to data pulled by Seglenieks, this February was the second warmest in the past 100 years – with the record being set in 2017 – and was roughly five degrees above average.
On a lighter note, the UW weather station has been running a contest for 25 years that calls on residents to predict the day and time the thermometer first hits 20 degrees within a 15 minute window.
In 2023, it was April 11 at 12:15 p.m.
The last time March saw 20 degree temperatures was in 2012.
But could that change in 2024? For Seglenieks and the contests sake, which closes on March 4 at 2 p.m., he hopes not.
“It occupies every minute of my day, living in my head that Monday could be the day,” he said.
“I’m hoping it doesn’t. I might start to cry a bit inside. We’re going to see.”
To make a guess in the weather station’s contest visit weather.uwaterloo.ca.
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