Last year was Canada’s warmest on record

The Bulletin provides a cross-country look at temperature and rainfall for 1998 and compares it to climate data collected by Environment Canada from the past 51 years.

1998’s average exceeds the record established in 1981 by a full 0.5oC, an incredible amount in a science where records are normally broken by no more than a tenth of a degree.

In 1998, the country experienced the second warmest Winter (1987 had the warmest Winter), and the warmest Spring, Summer and Autumn since the agency began collecting comparable nationwide temperature records in 1948.

Areas of the Arctic have had annual temperatures more than 4°C above normal in 1998. Much of the rest of the country has been more than 2°C above normal.

Canada, as a whole, had 2.7% less rainfall than normal making it the ninth driest year on record.

The dry and record warm weather caused Great Lakes water levels to fall during the year by up to twice their normal amount. The water level of Lake Ontario dropped by more than a metre (120 cm).

Globally, 1998 was the warmest on record, as well. Evidence to support greenhouse gas induced global warming, as predicted by global climate models, continues to mount.