Torchageddon

I had a sneaky shower come through this morning on a day with very low POPs. I had to turn the heat on again after the heatwave. Nice day though. Just hours away from the start of the best month, here's to something awesome...maybe (no thunderstorms of course, I still haven't gotten one yet). As many Canadians remember, today is the 35th anniversary of Ontario's worst tornado outbreak. While violent tornadoes were tearing through SON back then, in modern times we're lucky to even get a legit severe thunderstorm anywhere in this province. There's even been a stark change from the 2000s.

I still don't understand the difference between Heat Index and Humidex but I agree that Humidex seems flawed.

I might be near 15C above normal. The leaf-out speed is extreme.

We're up to 27C feeling like 34 at noon. Forecast high for today was increased again to 31C and now to 32C. That is way higher than the 5 day forecast leading to now...I forget what it was but probably 27C. Humidex was going to be 33 but now its 39 this afternoon. Tomorrow same temperature and humidex. This is approaching late May 2006 levels of awesomeness.

Shortly before 4 pm I had a developing t-storm side-swipe me and some of the largest rain drops I've seen started falling. I could hear each rain drop on the roof (like hail) and looking out it was stark white as if it were hailstones. Not many but wet the pavement in no time. I rushed outside and caught a drop on my sleeve and it felt like I was splashed. 11 minutes after the last drops the sun cleaned up. The storm matured to my east so no t-storms as always but Environment Canada issued a severe t-storm warning for a garden storm that was 20-30 minutes past me to the east with nothing upcoming. I love it.

What looked to be a iffy day turned out to be a great one, Midwestern ON is blowing way past the forecast temperatures every day now and the light rain for today came at 10:30 am. I see blue skies and towers going up all around . Its 26C feeling like 34C so far, forecast was 22C and t-storm showers. We are entering into a pseudo-heatwave (next three days will feel like 36C). Tomorrow is forecast to be the first 30C air temp of the year and decade. I'm starting to get warm . The quick swing isn't surprising, but the temperature exceeding the forecast by 3C or more each day now is. We were colder than forecast for so long its finally reversed. This isn't the worst May now afterall, the last 1/3rd saved it.

Yesterday was the first true day of summer here, pretty much perfect with no clouds and hardly a breeze. Today is going to be 27C which is much higher than predicted just a few days ago and I'm not too far from the lake so impressive.

No mention that this was the 3rd year in a row to first reach 20C in May: http://www.civil.uwaterloo.ca/weather/2020contest/contest.html "And a question, should we allow people to choose dates in June next year?" I forgot it was May 13 not 14 for the previous record longest. I do remember it being 1919 however. Interesting that it was right in the middle of the afternoon as May years tend to be very early in the day like 10 am.

UW at 18.8C, it jumped 1.2C in 15 minutes! Its always had random fluctuations. Butt-clenching time .

My feeling was wrong and UW only topped out at a laughable 17.7C early on then actually was going down from 1-4 pm. Its rising since and is nearly back to today's high.

Yep, I don't have the spreadsheet on this but I think May 14 was the record latest. With that said, low key I hope something stops the rise at 19.7C so tomorrow, May 20 or 21 is when UW gets it. I had a feeling though back early this month that the 15th would be the day. Its defintely the worst May I've ever seen, but its behind still June 2015 for awfulness. Nothing will compare to 2014 for me, but 2020 is a solid 2nd for worst year. I like to joke that "is 2020 still going to be a good year?"

Wow, absolutely remarkable. I'm sitting at 15C, felt tropical! UW at 17.7C.

Looking at Waterloo Ontario's 7 day, I notice that TWN lowered Sunday and Monday's high temp by 4C and increased the rain. The high will be very close to 20C for Friday and Saturday but if it stays just under then the contest may go to the 20th and even now that high of 24C was lowered to 20 so there is a 2% chance that even in the next 7 days no 20 . 108 years of regional weather data shows the latest first 20ºC reading was May 14th so if the unthinkable happens and it somehow doesn't til after 20th that would beat the record by 6+ days . Considering our climate as of recent decades that would definitely be one of the most absurd "streaks" I've ever seen. My weather has been pretty great the last few days for sun. Still too cold to enjoy it much. One interesting thing about our first possible 20ºC reading of the year is if its Friday (15th) then it will have occurred during a rainy day.

To my amazement, at least an inch of snow remained at 11:30 am here! . Even now during peak sun angle, there is still solid snowcover on roofs and trace on grass. This is something I defintely have never personally seen before in this month, most notable 2020 event locally thus far. The snow itself was an strange small ball shape like packing material but not graupel. Probably had close to 2 inches of snow during the deepest "snowpack". Last night I felt like putting all the Christmas decorations in the yard and stringing up the lights .

Had SN with nearly full sunlight at times, a rarity. It felt like snow was falling on a summer afternoon! Clouds looked cool today. It was a fun wx day.

It wasn't that much of a nail-biter after all, the UW Waterloo weather station only reached 18.6C . May 15th here we come! https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/14-day-weather-trend/ontario/waterloo?from7day=1 Never would've imagined this.

I hope both UW and YYZ don't reach 20C tomorrow, just for the lulz. Its already asinine that this is the 3rd year in a row that UW didn't get their 20 til May but if it goes past the 10th then we're looking at many decades since its been that late. Today was suppose to be one of two only good days this first half May, its dark and raining . I haven't heard thunder since early March and that was the only time so far in 2020.

I first saw it in 2015, I was confused too. I like how near the start of it the wife has a bigger reaction to the fact they were under a tornado warning than the actual wedge right in front of them.

I haven't been checking the long range much but the 500 mb pattern didn't look much different from the stuff I was seeing in Jan. I still am solid on 2014 being the worst year in modern times for all aspects. If it weren't for some sunny weather early this month than this April would've been neck and neck with June 2015 for worst weather month. I don't feel bad for complaining about this because with rona this is the worst case senario for people's well-being in this region. I was pissed as soon as my fears were realized that the mental health crisis was going to be exaserbated with this ****. Some ON posters may know of the UW Waterloo weather station contest to predict when we reach 20C for the first time annually. I can't believe this, but its nearly certain that this will be the 3rd year in a row where it will be in May! Before 2018 it was decades (70s?) since the first reading of 20 happened in May. With 108 years of data there were never 3 Mays in a row. I'm sitting at -1C with chill at -8C. A LES shower gave some whispy snow snakes on the road not long ago.

With how the climate has been behaving in recent years near the Lakes and what is taking place now it sealed it for me that my goal is now to simply leave, meteorology and weather is my main passion so to save it. Walking outside in mid-April feeling like your face is numb and in pain, yeah. Today's high is 0ºC with a wind chill of -9ºC for most of the day. That would be in the all-timers for the worst late April day since it will be overcast with flurries. I'm trying to remember an April that was this terrible. I saw on the 00z Euro the same nightmare and on the 240 hr frame (May 1) I smiled in horror.

I noticed that cell when first coming on looking at radar, it didn't have a severe warning on it but now TW?

Why does April always have to be doo-doo? The last 3 days have been miserable. Locally in SON, there were only 2 warm Aprils last decade!!

I had my +sn event around 9 this morning. It was one of the heaviest snowfalls by rate (maybe 1.5 in per hour) I've seen for April. Got around .5 in on the ground. 1/4 mile visiblity during peak. It looked like a winter wonderland out there .

The threat of damaging winds for Mon across nearly all of southern ON started to be communicated as early as Thursday afternoon. Most substainal weather here so far this year probably. Regarding the severe threat in the south for Sunday, I'll believe a major tornado outbreak when we see one. IMO the last single day was April 28 2014. Large geographic area of high potential is a big indicator for how likely we'll see one for the books and Sun has that. Even with my default non-scientific feeling always leaning on bust due to persistence, I think 1 or 2 strong tornadoes will occur. I wouldn't want to be down there in Dixie at a time like this, for multiple reasons but if so I'd be looking at my tornado plan and making sure I have a safe spot ready. Dixie is trending more as the main region for tornado alley.

Today was one of the worst March days. Dank garbage. True, and I'm a little further north in latitude than there with a even more appalling cloud cover regime. Going to fight to get the F outta here long-term.