‘A little coolish’: what to expect for the first week of spring

Environment Canada Senior Climatologist David Phillips breaks down the cooler temperatures expected as winter turns into spring.

While it was a warm end to winter, you may want to keep your toque and layers inside your closet for a little longer as the forecast is calling for cooler temperatures for the first weeks of spring.

“I look at the forecast over the next, say, month or so, and it looks kind of like just a little coolish. Normal temperatures, typical. April’s the cruel month, they say,” Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips said in an interview with CP24 on Thursday evening.

According to Environment Canada, the average temperature for April is 7 degrees Celsius.

Phillips says there will be a “big warm-up” in the latter half of April into May.

“Don’t rush spring. And I always think that the important thing is you don’t want to go from slush to sweat because that will always create problems for nature, for growing, and what have you. We just have to be a little patient,” he said.

The spring season officially started at 5:01 a.m. Thursday. Phillips says the average temperature for the next seven days is 5 degrees Celsius, a dip from the average of 15 degrees Celsius that Toronto saw during the final days of winter.

“I think nature didn’t get the email,” Phillips said.

On Wednesday, the last day of winter, the daytime high recorded at Toronto Pearson Airport was 21.1 degrees Celsius, almost setting a record.

“The spring is really characteristic by the transition season. It’s the mud season, it’s the flood season, it’s all of these things, but it is always slow to kind of arrive,” Phillips said.

“Typically, at this time of year, the afternoon highs will be about six degrees in Toronto, and we’re seeing temperatures that will be one degree on Sunday and maybe five degrees on Monday. So clearly, we’re in for a cold period.”

Phillips noted that Toronto usually still sees 12 centimetres of snow in the spring, which is 10 per cent of the annual total.

“It’s where winter wants to keep going, and summer wants to get a foothold,” he said.

It will be sunny on Friday with a high of 9 degrees Celsius. On Saturday, it will be cloudy with a 40 per cent chance of showers and a high of 6 degrees Celsius. The sun will return on Sunday, but the temperature will only reach a high of 1 degree Celsius.