(Montreal) The snow cover on the ground is below seasonal norms on this last day of 2023, says Environment Canada.
The federal organization indicates in a table published on X that snow is simply absent in Montreal and Quebec, while the average snow on the ground is respectively ten centimeters and 34 centimeters in these cities.
A carpet of snow of 5 cm covered Sept-Îles on December 31, but it should instead be 31 cm according to seasonal norms. Environment Canada reports that the snow cover is also significantly below seasonal norms in Gaspé and Bagotville, in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.
However, these data do not represent a record, specifies Gregory Yang, meteorologist at Environment Canada.
“For Montreal, for example, we have had green Christmases six times in the last ten years,” he explains in an interview. For Quebec, it’s a little rarer. The last time we didn’t have snow on the ground on December 25 was in 2015.”
The further north a city is in the province, the rarer it is that it has had a green Christmas, he says.
The averages released by Environment Canada were calculated using data collected between 1981 and 2010, says Mr. Yang. Next year, the organization will receive new data, which was collected between 1991 and 2010, which will allow us to see whether climate change has had an effect on snow cover season averages in recent years.
For now, Yang suspects the amount of snow from the new data will be lower than the previous average.
Even if it is not yet possible to say that climate change will cause less snow in the coming winters, the meteorologist believes that we can expect more unpredictable winters.
“With global warming, it’s not necessarily that it’s going to be hotter in the future, it’s just that we could have more extremes,” explains Mr. Tang.