Climatologist says incoming ‘supercharged’ El Niño could mean shorter, warm winter

The fall season will officially arrive in two weeks, and for those people that aren’t a fan of the cold weather, they’re in luck.

A potentially historic El Niño is expected to prolong fall-like conditions, and delay the arrival of wintry weather.

David Phillips, a climatologist who used to work for Environment Canada, has been tracking the weather pattern, and says models for the upcoming winter show warmer than normal conditions from coast to coast.

He says if history is any indication, Hamilton won’t have a traditional winter at all.

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“In Ontario, we’ve had — if you ranked the warmest to the coldest winters, in 80 of them warmest to the coldest, the top three were all super El Niño events,” said Phillips. “So I’d go to the bank on the fact that this winter looks like it’s going to be calm, pale, timid — not the kind of brutal winter that we sometimes see.”

There are no guarantees when it comes to the weather, and Phillips says if the El Niño collides with a polar vortex, we could have some cold moments.

If the models are correct, and very little snow falls this winter, Phillips says it will create an early start to the forest fire season, and more drought for farmers.

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