PARRY SOUND - Rain, or as Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson joked, the “lack thereof,” is on the mind of many across the province.
Average rainfall for the entire month of July is 100 milimetres. Thus far, Parry Sound has seen just 4mm of the wet stuff.
The area saw a dry winter and spring, and it seems the trend continues, Coulson said, with a dry summer.
“I know some areas did see some good lake-effect snowfall this past winter, perhaps not right in Parry Sound, quite as often as in some of those surrounding areas.
“But overall, I’d say for the district and Huntsville and in and around Orillia and Barrie, we didn’t see as much as we would normally see, snowfall-wise,” said Coulson Monday afternoon. “And yet in others, I know Muskoka had a very snowy winter. Again, a few lake-effect bands locked in off Georgian Bay and gave them normal amounts of snow, maybe even snowier than normal, but generally, across the district not as much snow as we’d expect to get.”
This month, Coulson said the province has seen dry Julys, but this one has been especially lacking.
“We’ve seen some dry July’s in years past, but this one definitely, so far, has been very, very dry,” said Coulson.
The driest July on record in the Parry Sound area was in 1923, where just 10.9 mm fell for the month.
“That’s been kind of the way things have gone this summer. We’ve had some spotty shower activity where it’s rained heavily for only 20 minutes and the storm’s moved off,” he said. “(Sunday) was an excellent case and point, spotty shower activity where you were (in Parry Sound), and where I was in Mississauga it rained pretty heavily for about a half hour and that was it and yet in other parts of the Greater Toronto Area, some areas towards Scarborough, picked up around 80 milimetres in the span of about two hours and caused local flooding and things of that nature.
This nature of the rainfall is what we expect to see in the summer, very localized.
July is traditionally our warmest month. This particular stretch of weather we’ve had, we’ve seen above normal temperatures for a number of days right through the spring and into the summer and really.”
Coulson said thunderstorms and some rain was expected Monday night and Tuesday afternoon and evening. The storm never materilized Monday night.
“At this point the forecast for Wednesday, right through to Sunday there’s no real precipitation, just sunshine, temperatures a little above seasonal into the high 20s,” he said. “Wednesday could start a little warm and humid first thing in the morning, but as the day progresses it should be much more comfortable than it has been over the last few days. Daytime highs Wednesday and Thursday around 27. But definitely by Thursday it’s probably only going to feel around 30 with the Humidex.”