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The mercury is expected to hit 20 C Tuesday — the first time this year in Ottawa.
Environment Canada’s forecast calls for a high of 20 C on Tuesday and 22 C on Wednesday. Thursday, too, is expected to see a high of 22 C, with periods of rain. The forecast also calls for periods of cloud and rain into Thursday, with showers expected on Friday.
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While the forecast calls for a three-day-stretch of unseasonably warm temperatures, we aren’t expected to break any records.
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The record for warmest temperature on April 9 is 23.5 C, set back in 2021, Peter Kimbell, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said in an interview Tuesday.
He noted the average daytime high is around 10 C for this time of year, but “we’re looking at two or three days of warmer than average weather.”
He noted Ottawa saw comparable stretches of warm April days in 2021 and again in 2023. This year, though, “we won’t be breaking any records,” he said. “But we’ll be well above average.”
The record high temperature for April 10 was recorded in 1945, when temperatures hit 25.6 C. Similarly, the record high temperature for April 11 was 26.1 C, Kimbell said, also set in 1945.
This year, the spate of unseasonably warm temperatures is brought on by a low-pressure system bringing warm air from Texas, Kimbell said, tracking across Ontario’s Great Lakes and “ushering in a warm air mass” to southern and eastern Ontario.
Rain is in the forecast for Thursday night, and after that, the forecast calls for more seasonally expected weather, with a high of 15 C for Friday and 7 C on Friday.
“It will be a bit of a rollercoaster, which is not abnormal for April, a low-pressure systems that bring in some warm weather,” he said. “But then we bounce back to something closer to normal.”
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