Halloween weather more trick than treat

Though there’ll be plenty of sunshine Sunday, temperatures are expected to be less-than-costume-friendly for trick-or-treaters.

Sunday’s high is forecast to reach only 6 C, cooling off as the evening approaches.

High winds knock out power across Ontario

Powerful winds of up to 80 km/h that left tens of thousands of residents in cottage country without power by Thursday morning steered clear of the city.

Geoff Coulson, Environment Canada meteorologist who specializes in weather warnings said, although there were winds gusts up to 63 km/h reported in the GTA early morning, they only issue wind warnings for winds of steady speeds of 70 km/h or gusts of 90 km/h.

“These are speeds that usually get reports of notable damage,” he said.

Up to 50,000 people in the areas of Muskoka, Belleville, Kingston, Timmins and Sudbury were without power Thursday morning, as a result of powerful overnight winds.

“These are heavily wooded areas,” Daniele Gauvin, spokesperson for Hydro One, said Thursday morning. “There were many cases of trees falling on power lines, but it is now safe to use our helicopters to respond to the affected areas.”

She estimated that there are still almost 20,000 people without power, but it is expected to restored everywhere by the end of the day.

As for Thursday, the mercury will hit a high of 12C in the GTA and there’s a 30 per cent chance of showers late in the afternoon and evening, said Coulson.

He said the wind gusts are expected to continue throughout the day, reaching speeds of between 40 to 60 km/h.

-- Daniela Germano, Staff Reporter

Wind warning for Toronto

Strong winds expected to blow through the city Wednesday could reach 90 km/h, Environment Canada warns.

The agency has issued a wind warning for Toronto and much of southern Ontario following severe storms in northwestern Ontario on Tuesday.

“We’re expecting damaging winds to start developing during the late morning hours and continue on through the afternoon,” meteorologist Rosemary Tabory of the Ontario Storm Prediction Centre said.

Sharp blasts of 60 km/h could reach 90 km/h in the GTA and 100 km/h along the Bruce Peninsula.

The gusts should ease off in the evening as the storms move toward northern Quebec, Tabory added.

“We should start seeing things get better tomorrow,” she said.

-Gloria Er-Chua

Storm weakens as it hits GTA

 
Clouds pass over Manteno, Ill., Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2010, as a storm  producing high winds passes through the Chicago area. (Josep P. Meier/AP Photo)

By Madeline White

A “weather bomb” that struck Chicago on Tuesday fizzled out by the time the winds and rain hit Toronto.

The storm brought powerful wind gusts and heavy downpours in the Windy City this afternoon but lost much of its steam as it crossed the border.

“While there are still some heavier showers around, it’s not necessarily the same intensity as we originally thought,” said Geoff Coulson, meteorologist with Environment Canada.

Gusts are expected to remain well below 90 km/h, meaning Environment Canada hasn’t forecasted a thunderstorm watch. But the region will continue to see rain — heavy at times — until early Wednesday, with the strongest winds dying down by midnight.

Much of the GTA can expect up to 15 millimetres of rain before the system gives way to sunshine and a high of 16 C later Wednesday.

Despite its weakened intensity, the storm has still caused some minor problems in the city.

There were a series of short power outages, mainly in the east end. Just after 7 p.m., an outage that was affecting much of East York had been restored, but crews were then called to Don Mills for another small blackout.

Also, Pearson airport reported at least 15 flight cancellations.

The massive storm reaches as far west as Saskatchewan and its eastern tip was hanging over Peterborough around 6:30 p.m. Coulson estimated that it was at least 2,000 kilometres wide.

It has left a trail of destruction the U.S. Midwest, where some houses were blasted by the wind. Weather bomb, a proper meteorological term, is used to describe a rapidly intensifying storm.

Weather Service meteorologist Jim Allsopp said the storm could be one of the strongest to hit Illinois in more than 70 years as gusts topped 80 kilometres an hour early Tuesday.

At its height, the storm was also picking up speed on Twitter, where people were dubbing it “Chiclone” and “Windpocalypse.”

With files from Noel Grzetic and the Associated Press

Indian summer, but where's the sun?

Environment Canada says Toronto is in for some warmer-than-seasonal weather in the coming days, with temperatures rising as high as 21 C Tuesday.

After various frost warnings for the GTA and the layer-inducing temperatures last week, this is a welcome change for the city.

 “I think the way things are going this may be our little bout of Indian summer,” said Geoff Coulson, meteorologist with Environment Canada.

The missing ingredient for a true Indian summer?

Sunshine.

Although temperatures will be high, Toronto will be plagued with showers and thunderstorms.

“Wednesday is really the nicest day in terms of combining milder-than-normal temperature as well as sunshine,” said Coulson.

The normal daytime high for this week should be around 11 C, according to Coulson, but an air flow from the American Deep South is bringing a warm air mass to the city, as well as lots of fog.

The weather is expected to break down starting Thursday, as temperatures dip to 9 C.

--Noel Grzetic, Staff Reporter

An early taste of winter

Motorists north of the GTA awoke Friday morning to their first taste of winter this season with almost three centimetres of snow falling in and around Barrie.

And, as can be expected, the snow came with howls of protest.

People who checked their calendars Friday could be heard grumbling on early-morning radio programs.

These were probably the same people who vividly recalled that winter was cancelled last year.

“We were spoiled last year,” said David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada. “Last year we didn’t get a trace of snow until Dec. 1.”

But the history books will also tell you that snow does sometimes fall before the leaves in October, and this is, after all, Canada.

Just be glad it’s not 1969 all over again.

On Oct. 21 that year, Toronto recorded 7.1 centimetres of snow.

But October’s biggest dump came in 1962, on the 25th, when 7.4 centimetres fell.

Dustings of snow have come even earlier than October.

The earliest reported trace of snow to fall in Toronto came on Sept. 20, 1956.

Mother Nature, however, doesn’t appear to be on a cruel streak.

Warmer than normal temperatures are returning next week, which should induce people to get out and vote in the municipal election on Monday.

The day will, however, come with intermittent showers.

Looking ahead to November, Phillips said the Environment Canada weather model looks like that month is going to be warmer than normal too.

He’s not as promising when it comes to the forecast for winter snow.

“We’re not going to see a repeat of last year. We won’t be as snow free,” he said.

Partly, you can blame the effects of La Nina, which is a colder than normal water current in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

However, the “American air” that is being pushed north over the next few days is continuing a trend we’ve seen all year, Phillips said.

Every month this year has been warmer than normal, and we’re heading for the warmest year on record, as long as November and December don’t pull any surprises.

“We’ve been on an absolute roll,” Phillips said.

-- Curtis Rush, Staff Reporter

Typhoon Megi kills 3 in Philippines

A resident braves the strong winds and heavy rain at the onslaught of typhoon Megi (local name "Juan") Monday Oct.18, 2010 at Cauayan, Isabela province in northeastern Philippines. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

CAUAYAN, PHILIPPINES—The strongest cyclone in years to crash into the Philippines killed at least three people Monday, leaving a wasteland of fallen trees and power poles and sending thousands scampering to safety in near-zero visibility. A retired general said bracing for the onslaught was like preparing for war.

Super typhoon Megi, blowing across the northern Philippines, was forecast next to head toward China and Vietnam, where recent floods unrelated to the storm have caused 30 deaths.

On Monday, strong currents on Vietnam's flooded main highway swept away a bus and 20 of its passengers, including a boy pulled from his mother's grasp. In China, authorities evacuated 140,000 people from a coastal province ahead of the typhoon.

Megi packed sustained winds of 225 kilometres per hour and gusts of 260 km/h as it made landfall midday Monday at Palanan Bay in Isabela province, felling trees and utility poles and cutting off power, phone and Internet services. Its ferocious wind slightly weakened while crossing the mountains of the Philippines' main northern island of Luzon.

With more than 4,000 people riding out the typhoon in sturdy school buildings, town halls, churches and relatives' homes, roads in and out of coastal Isabela province, 320 kilometres northeast of Manila, were deserted and blocked by collapsed trees, power lines and debris.

One man who had just rescued his water buffalo slipped and fell into a river and drowned in Cagayan province, near Isabela. A woman was pinned to death when a tamarind tree crushed her house and injured her child in Kalinga province, and a security guard died after being struck by a pine tree in nearby Baguio city, officials said.

At least six were injured in the region by falling trees, collapsed roof and shattered glass, officials said.

As it crashed ashore, the typhoon whipped up huge waves. There was near-zero visibility and radio reports said the wind was so powerful that people could not take more than a step at a time. Ships and fishing vessels were told to stay in ports, and several domestic and international flights were cancelled.

The entire Isabela province lost power along with 16 of Cagayan's 28 towns as the typhoon blew by. Cagayan Governor Alvaro Antonio said the wind was fierce but blew high from the ground, sparing many ricefields ready for harvesting.

Although initial casualties were low compared to past storm disasters, retired army Maj.-Gen. Benito Ramos, who heads the country's disaster-preparedness agency, expressed sadness over the deaths. Bracing for the typhoon, he said, was like “preparing for war.”

“This was tougher because in war, I could take a nap,” Ramos told The Associated Press.

Thousands of military reserve officers and volunteers were on standby, along with helicopters, including six Chinooks that were committed by U.S. troops holding war exercises with Filipino soldiers near Manila, Ramos said.

In July, an angry President Benigno Aquino III fired the head of the weather bureau for failing to predict that a typhoon would hit Manila. That storm killed more than 100 people in Manila and outlying provinces.

This time, urgent preparations included evacuations and the positioning of emergency relief and food supplies days before the typhoon hit. The capital was expected to avoid any direct hit, though schools were closed.

Megi was the most powerful typhoon to hit the Philippines in four years, government forecasters say. A 2006 howler with 250-km/h winds set off mudslides that buried entire villages, killing about 1,000 people.

In Vietnam, officials say up to 800 millimetres of rain have pounded areas in just a few days, forcing 126,000 people to flee their homes. Earlier flooding this month left more than 80 people dead or missing.

Megi could add to the misery.

“People are exhausted,” Vietnamese disaster official Nguyen Ngoc Giai said by telephone from Quang Binh province. “Many people have not even returned to their flooded homes from previous flooding, while many others who returned home several days ago were forced to be evacuated again.”

China's National Meteorological Centre said Megi was expected to enter the South China Sea on Tuesday, threatening southeastern coastal provinces. The centre issued its second-highest alert for potential “wild winds and huge waves,” warning vessels to take shelter and urging authorities to brace for emergencies.

Nearly 140,000 people fled homes in the southern island province of Hainan, where heavy rains left thousands homeless over the weekend, the official Xinhua news agency reported Monday.

Thailand also reported flooding that killed at least four people, submerged thousands of homes and vehicles and halted train service. It also prompted the evacuation of nearly 100 elephants from a popular tourist attraction north of the capital.

Motorists drive past a filling station which was toppled by typhoon Megi. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Residents brave the strong winds and heavy rains at the onslaught of typhoon Megi.(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Cooler temperatures bring frost warning

Environment Canada issued its third frost warning this month for Halton, Peel, York and Durham regions on Tuesday, but the City of Toronto has been spared yet again.

“The concrete and asphalt tends to keep our temperatures higher in the core of the city as opposed to the suburbs,” said Geoff Coulson, meteorologist with Environment Canada.

The clear skies and winds expected Tuesday overnight will be key ingredients in the development of frost Wednesday morning in the GTA, where temperatures may dip to a degree or two below freezing.

Coulson says gardeners will want to protect their vulnerable plants by wrapping or watering them before night falls, to provide some extra insulation against the cold.

Suburbanites will also want to wrap themselves up, particularly if leaving the house early in the morning.

“We’re now fully into the season of layers,” said Coulson.

The frost is only a threat Wednesday; increasing cloud coverage and daytime temperatures will help keep the nights warm at least until the weekend.

"We’re entering into what we would expect for this time of year – fall-like weather - but that doesn’t preclude us from getting a fair amount of sunshine,” said Coulson. Saturday and Sunday will see temperatures climb to 16 C.

-- Noel Grzetic, Staff Reporter

Weather serves up warmer than usual Thanksgiving

You would be hard pressed to find fault with the weather this Thanksgiving weekend.

Environment Canada is forecasting unusually warm weather with temperatures expected in the high teens and clear blue skies through out the long weekend.

Typically, the temperatures sit around 13 C at this time of the year, senior climatologist Dave Phillips said.

The fall colours are out in full glory and with no rain expected, Phillips called the weekend weather “a perfect 10 on 10.”

But as gorgeous as those leaves look, the OPP is warning drivers to keep their eyes focused on the road.

“Distraction is a major concern,” said OPP Sgt. Dave Woodford. “There will be lots of people making day trips to see the fall colours, they’ll be on unfamiliar roads and looking around instead of paying attention to the road.”

The OPP will also be on the lookout for the other usual culprits, including aggressive driving, impaired driving, seatbelt infractions and texting while driving.

Two years ago, 11 people died on OPP patrolled highways during the Thanksgiving long weekend. Last year, only one person died, Woodford.

“That’s an improvement, but it’s still one person too many,” he said.

Give yourself plenty of extra time as the roads are expected to be busier than usual.

--Tamara Baluja, Staff Reporter

A rise of 2 degrees poses huge risks for Canada: study

Canada’s Arctic sea ice might be halved, runoff in the Saskatchewan River basin would be reduced, and shipping through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway could cost more, according to a report on climate change released in Ottawa.

Described as the first ever comprehensive illustration of expected climate change in Canada, the report is a joint project of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

The research is covered in depth on the website of the roundtable, as well as in the October issue of Canadian Geographic, which features a wide range of articles on climate change’s effect on Canadian resources, Halifax’s rising harbour, and the impact on global warming on health care.

Also available is a detailed poster/map that looks at what would happen to Canada if the temperature increases between 1 and 5 degrees Celsius.

Other changes facing Canada if temperature increase could include: Western mountain glaciers losing 50 per cent of their volume; exposure to vector borne diseases, more deaths from heat waves; loss of boreal forest and tundra; compromised water quality; more deaths from poor air quality; polar bear subpopulations at risk of extinction; and more water-borne disease outbreaks.

Average world temperatures are now up 0.78 degrees C compared to before the industrial revolution over a century ago.

The United Nations climate-change summit in Copenhagen last December ended with a non-binding document that limited world temperature increases to no more than 2 degrees C.

Debra Black, Staff Reporter