Here in Toronto, it's been 16˚C this past week. In February. We've had about 2 or 3 real snowfalls that stuck around for a few days before melting.
As somebody who loves ice skating outside, it's really frustrating. And I love the snow.
Every year it seems like the winter gets a little milder...
It snowed the day after it was 75˚F.
It's rather usual for a northerly place like Calgary to go from -20˚ to +20˚ Celsius (or the reverse) over the course of a day due to Chinook winds from the mountains. They're really quite a sight if there are any clouds—you can watch the wall of whatever front is blowing in.
In Ontario, it's rather unusual for the same kind of phenomenon, and we've experienced it multiple times this winter.
One single day hit 16 at the max. Another hit ~14. That's a very generous way of looking at our weather this winter. This has been a much snowier winter than last year as well (and some others of recent memory).
Yes it's been unusual to have the final 2 weeks of February average above 0 during the day.
Both December and January were very cold with a monthly mean temp of -5˚C (ref: http://climate.weather.gc.ca/climate_data/daily_data_e.html?...). By mid-January there were a ton of stories in the media about how cold our winter had been and various records had been set. Everyone in the city was complaining about this winter for most of it (until recently).
Example: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/fourteen-cold-h...
Relevant quote: Following a sudden stratospheric warming, the high altitude winds reverse to flow eastward instead of their usual westward. The eastward winds progress down through the atmosphere and weaken the jet stream, often giving easterly winds near the surface and resulting in dramatic reductions in temperature in Europe.
see also (in german): http://www.meteoschweiz.admin.ch/home/aktuell/meteoschweiz-b...
Not necessarily. If there was no long term warming trend, records would become less common over time, since they would be weather-related random values and there are more previous year data points to compare against. A warming trend would act counter to that effect, but not necessarily overcome it.
yes it does.