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Weather in Cobourg Ontario as well as recent weather trends and personal observations.Weather in Cobourg Ontario can at times be fickle or unique compared to many other weather trends occurring at any given time across the rest of Ontario.Weather is always in the back of my mind, as a person whose livelihood depends greatly on weather (Lawn Care and Snow Service) and what trends are unfolding on a daily, monthly or yearly basis. As I am a firm believer in Global Warming or lets say Climate change, weather and precipitation patterns have become more extreme. As I am writing these comments there is no snow on the ground at all in Cobourg, Ontario and the date is February 19th with temperatures at or below normal fro this time of the year. As the rest (or most of) the world thinks we live in Igloos or we are from the great white north, this year is definitely not the case. This is a El Nino year, that I believe is unique, as we have and cold dry temperature patterns. Our only large precipitation events this winter have all been significant rain events. The latest one occurred on January 25th when severe (100 year) flooding took place, here are some of my pictures taken later in the afternoon when waters had already started to recede. During the height of the flooding major intersections had up to 3ft. of water.
"In essence, an El Niņo event happens when an enormous puddle of warm water, which normally sits near Indonesia, sloshes across the Pacific to take up residence around Peru. For centuries, Peruvians have known El Niņo to recur every three to seven years, rarely lasting longer than one year each. Usually they were followed by a strong cooling of the equatorial Pacific, a complementary phase termed "La Niņa." El Niņo in North America "While El Niņo is sitting off the west coast of the Americas, it shifts the flow of air over North America, altering weather patterns across the continent. Notice the small jetstream which forms over the southern USA." "In Canada this produces weather significantly drier and warmer than normal, with more frequent droughts in the summer. The southern jetstream produced by the 97/98 El Niņo set the stage for the ice storm that devastated eastern Canada. During a La Niņa the air flow pattern relaxes, and abnormally cool, wet conditions prevail from BC to southern Quebec." These relaxed patterns are what we have experienced over the last few previous years with cool wet summers and large amounts of snowfall during the winter. Ask any "Cobourgians" what the Weather in Cobourg Ontario the last couple of summers were like to go golfing or camping or even to go out and get a sun tan. Back to the weather patterns at hand lately, this winter has only seen one snow event that was over 2" and that was in early December. This snow storm ended in rain and alot of it, since then there have been a couple of skiffs of snow (all less than 1/2 an inch of snow) and were mostly related to lake effect conditions or wrap around snow from larger storms coming up the Atlantic seaboard. What does that mean for upcoming Weather in Cobourg Ontario, or for that matter the rest of Southern Ontario? I believe based on past winters that have been like this that it will be an early warm spring. There will be little rain as well as a warm to hot dry summer. Unfortunately this type of weather pattern is not good for lawns and therefore anyone whose livelihood depends on it such as myself. So this year home owners don't set your cutting height based on the weather we have had over the past couple summers if you want your lawn to have a chance at being green. Set your height to 3" inches or higher and feed with a slow release fertilizer. Keep your fingers crossed that I'm wrong, but based on my over 17 years in this business there one thing you can count on the Weather In Cobourg Ontario is fickle and some times called by the old timers as "the banana belt" where all the precipitation goes around us leaving us high and dry.
I'm glad to see this snow, we need snow on the ground to provide some much needed snow melt to add to the soil in the spring to prevent a dry start to late spring beginning of the mowing season. Welcome to March 2010. The snow that fell during the final week in February lasted only a few days on the ground. The temperature when the snow was falling was right at the freezing mark and due to the close proximity of Lake Ontario, the temperature was back above freezing the following day. As I add this to my website (March 7) the temperatures have been 5 to 7 degrees Celsius above the norm. and are forecast to continue until almost mid March. There has been no precipitation since the snow and there is none forecast until at least the 12th. I hope that there is at least 1 or 2 good snows left in the winter of 2009-10. If we don't get them it looks like this will the least amount of snow seen in any winter in more than half a century.
Keep in mind that I'm approaching my mid-forties and most of the lakes' shrinking has happened since I was in high school (the early 1980's). Where has all the water gone?
As a result of no snow melt and extremely warm and dry trends the chance of such things as grass fires are apt to happen a lot sooner than other normal winter years. The picture taken above is from across the road from where I live in Harwood on St. Patties' day, yesterday. The cause is unknown who knows something as small as flicking a cigarette but out the window this time of year could be a trigger. Well the good weather in Cobourg persisted for most of this week. Temperatures were running a good 5+ degrees Celsius above normal. Even though this yesterday morning and this morning (march 27th) started out below -5 Celsius with daytime temperatures just above zero, it looks like the writing is on the wall. This if the forecast is correct will be the end of the days with a minus in them. After checking the outlook for next week and the Easter Long Weekend you might think we were headed right for summer. The forecast temps for the Easter Weekend are Friday, 16 C, Saturday, 23 C, Sunday, 20 C and Monday, 18 C. Although these temps will make a great many people happy now, if the trend continues are we in for a scorching summer? I hope not. Well here we are in the first week of May, And finally some rain. Mind you it hasn't been large amount but we have had at least a couple of millimetres of rain a couple of times this week which is more than we can say we've since January. Temperatures have still been on the warm side as well. The forecasters are calling for more rain this Mother's Day weekend and I hope we actually get it. The ground is still rock hard and cracked looking which makes digging up my garden a real chore. Lets keep our fingers crossed that this wetter pattern persists well into May for all our sakes.
Those normal temps even with little rainfall managed to keep the lawns green. Unfortunately once the last week or so came so did the mid July type of weather, high temperatures near 29 degrees Celsius, high humidity and no rain. This extremely quick turnaround in the weather burnt off many lawns that were being cut shorter than 3"+ high or those that were in full sun. Ahh, thank the rain gods. The first week of June has brought Cobourg some much needed rain. We received a few nights of rain as well as a good 12 hours straight of the liquid life that is so desperately need in our part of the country on June 5 th and 6th. This rain has helped local farmers as well as I have noticed with the recent heat and then rain that the local corn fields have taken off as well as the other locally planted field crops. Let's hope the weekly rains continue and not the hotter and drier weather patterns that are predicted for our area this summer. Remember to cut your lawns at least 3" or higher to try to keep your lawn green. Wow!, what a fantastic July Canada long weekend weather wise. In Cobourg the waterfront festival celebrating its' 20th year had a record turn out. Unfortunately, immediately following the weekend we had or first major heat wave lasting the entire week with humidex readings reaching nearly 40 Celsius. There is is only a small break this weekend (July 10-11th) with out the humidity and we are back into another heat wave next week. Luckily there is rain forecast Tuesday and Friday to help keep things from burning up. I guess this is making up for the past few summers of no heat and lots of rain. Guess what? This is looking like it will be the warmest year on record for Cobourg and most of the rest of Eastern Canada. We have been on average 3.5 Degrees Celsius warmer than average. If it had not been for an above normal amount of rain due to thunderstorms, the Cobourg area would have been extremely brown as far as local lawns go. We were lucky that our area had a cooler May which forced the roots of our lawns to go deeper than normal to find water. That coupled with a lot of rain in June most lawns as I drive around now coming up to the end of August (28th) things are still green. I hope that most of you have been following my earlier advice regarding the height that your lawn should be cut at, which was 3" as a minimum. I actually have been cutting my customers lawns at 3-1/2" and even 3-3/4" to help keep my lawns green. The humidity has been the real story as we had almost a solid month of high humidity which I imagine must be a record as well. Most days in July felt more 35 degrees Celsius than just the posted highs of 27-30. The long range is looking like more of the same, hot and humid well into September. I'll report back later and let you know. Check back often as I will report back with new observations or events involving Weather In Cobourg Ontario as they occur. There is also a great Canadian Weather Blog over at Accuweather.com. It is moderated by Brett Anderson who has over 20 years as a senior meteorologist. Bookmark it if your are one of my many Canadian visitors and check back frequently.
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