THUNDER BAY — The month of February brought Northwestern Ontario residents a double whammy of unusually cold and unusually snowy weather.
Environment Canada data released Monday shows the mean daily temperature at Thunder Bay Airport between Feb. 1 and Feb. 27, 2022 was just -16.9 C.
That's almost a full five degrees lower than the long-term February mean temperature of -12 C.
Meteorologist Steven Flisfeder describes that as "a pretty far departure" from normal.
"Anything more than one or two degrees away from normal is fairly significant. It's not just Thunder Bay. We've been seeing very low temperatures throughout Northwestern Ontario this month."
The city's coldest February on record wasn't actually that long ago.
In 2015, the mean temperature was minus 19.6 C.
The other extraordinary statistic for February of this year is snowfall.
Flisfeder said that, up to Monday morning, 67.6 centimetres of snow has fallen this month at Thunder Bay Airport, whereas the long-term average is only 26.9 centimetres.
But it's still nowhere close to February 1996 when Thunder Bay received 109 centimetres of snow, about half of which fell during one storm.
Environment Canada's weather radar station is providing data intermittently only
Weather forecasters currently are only receiving data from Environment Canada's weather radar station north of Thunder Bay on an intermittent basis.
Flisfeder said a communications issue developed around Feb. 9.
EC is still waiting for parts to arrive so the unit, located off Highway 527, can go back online full-time.
In the interim, forecasters are able to access neighbouring radar data from units in Dryden, Minnesota and Michigan.
Flisfeder said meteorologists also still have numerous other ways to monitor weather in the Thunder Bay area including satellites, surface observations, volunteer observers and Environment Canada's numerical weather modelling.
As a result, he said, the absence of local radar "has not had a huge effect on our ability to do the forecasts."
