It has been quite a week in the Weather Centre and in the gardens and fields across Atlantic Canada: two killing frosts were followed by a few near-record warm afternoons and then thunderstorms.
Let’s get back to the frost. When was the last time we had frost so late in June? Well, you don’t have to think back very far - it was last year!
It was June 16, 2017, that was the Friday morning heading into the Father’s Day weekend.
Just after sunrise, the temperature dipped to a record -1.7 C in Collegeville, N.S. (25 km southwest of Antigonish). North East Margaree on Cape Breton Island came in a close second with a morning reading of -1.4. Over on Prince Edward Island, the official reading in Dover was -0.5; that same temperature was recorded in Saint-Quentin, N.B. For a second consecutive day, it was a frosty morning in Upper Stewiacke, N.S. with a sunrise temperature of -0.1 C.
It was also quite chilly in Newfoundland and Labrador the morning of the 16th. The mercury dipped to -1.1 in Labrador City. I wasn’t able to find any reports of frost on the island portion of the province, but it was very cool with an overnight low of only 2 in St. John’s, N.L.
So, while this year’s frost was later than normal and devastating for many, it’s not as unusual as we might like to think.
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Cindy Day is the chief meteorologist for SaltWire Network.
