Canada experiences coldest, extended winter two weeks after season is officially over

The Canadians are experiencing the coldest and prolonged winter this year as it is snowing on Friday even though the winter season is officially over.

Officially winter sets in on Dec 21 and ends on Mar 21, but there is no let-up in biting cold weather with the temperature hovering between 0˚ and -5˚ Celsius on Friday.

 

It has been snowing in Toronto since morning, and it will continue until 1:10pm, according to the Weather Network forecast. Night temperature would reach -5 ˚Celsius.

The weather experts predicted that it would be a cold winter but could not effectively forecast how prolonged it would be.

The northern part of Canada is the coldest, but even Toronto, the southern city with a large population, broke the 60-year temperature record when the mercury dropped to -23˚ Celsius on Jan 5 this year. The previous record was -20.6˚ Celsius in 1959.

The Weather Network's chief meteorologist, Chris Scott, at the beginning of the winter told CBC news that people should "buckle up because it looks like a stormy winter". 

He said this year's La Nina weather system bore a striking resemblance to that of 2007-2008 when Toronto recorded the snowiest winter ever.

"History tells us that when we have cooler waters off the coast of South America, that's La Nina, and those winters tend to be classic Canadian winters," he had told CBC News.

Environment Canada forecasts there will be 2cm of snowfall on Friday and some of it would change to showers or flurries.

Meteorologists consider December, January and February as the coldest months in Northern Hemisphere. However, in Canada, the length of winter varies by regions because of the country's latitudinal range.

In most parts of Canada, winter is marked by snow, ice, blizzards, wind and the hazards of wind chill. Extreme weather during Canadian winters seems to be a norm, rather than an exception.

The coldest recorded temperature in North America was recorded in Snag, Yukon, on Feb 3, 1947, when the temperature reached a bone-chilling -63˚Celsius, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.