Weekend weather starts foggy, ends soggy

After a great summer, Toronto is missing out on making it a ‘perfect 10’ with gloomy weather and perhaps a thunderstorm or two forecasted for the long weekend.

“It’s going to start warm and end up a little on the cool side, with some precipitation in between,” said Dave Phillips, Environment Canada senior climatologist.

“There was a lot to sing the praises of this particular summer. The long weekends were good. It’s just that this would have been … almost the making of a perfect 10, and takes a little bit away from it.”

Torontonians headed out into a thick white fog Friday morning, as the cool ground chilled the warmer humid air above it, Phillips said.

Those conditions, combined with a lack of wind, left the city smothered in an eerie mist. The fog disappeared as the day heated up, with a predicted high temperature of 30 C and some sun and cloud.

There’s a chance of rain and even a thunderstorm later Friday evening, and some more fog will likely roll in overnight. Phillips’s pick for the best day of the weekend is Saturday, due to some comfortable weather moving in.

“That’s the best time to really enjoy the outdoors and the swimming and the picnicking, if you can do it in the daylight hours tomorrow,” he said.

Saturday will likely be cloudy, with a 40 per cent chance of showers late in the afternoon and evening, along with some windy weather. Watch out for the chance of a thunderstorm Saturday evening.

Environment Canada predicts a daytime high of 32 C. “Temperature is not the issue of the weekend,” Phillips said, noting that the average temperature for this time of year is 23 C.

“It’s about the rain.” Along those lines, a rainy Sunday has a predicted high temperature of 25 C.

Labour Day Monday will likely be overcast, with a 60 per cent chance of more rain. The mercury should rise to 22 C as students celebrate their last day of freedom.

The other long weekends over the summer months have had more enjoyable weather, Phillips said.

“It’s a bit disappointing. This would have been the icing on the cake to what had been a pretty good summer,” he said.

This summer featured 21 days with a temperature above 30 C, he said. Toronto usually sees 11 of these hot days. The city also saw just 24 wet days, as opposed to the 32 normally had.

Plus, there were zero smog days. Still, this long weekend is warmer than last year’s, which had temperatures of just 17 C to 19 C.

“It’s not a perfect 10 but it’s not just a one, either,” Phillips said.

- Aleysha Haniff