Environment Canada cited deadly heat waves, massive wildfires, devastating floods, drought, destructive tornadoes and hurricanes as it unveiled its annual top ten weather stories of the year.
Senior climatologist David Phillips says 2021 turned out to be another destructive, expensive and impactful year of weather.
“Property damages cost Canadians multi-millions of dollars and the economy multi-billions of dollars.
It was another warm year, I think the 26th in a row. Every region and every season in Canada was warmer than the long-term average.”
Atlantic Canada was spared a lot of extreme weather this year but the biggest story for the region was Hurricane Larry which directly hit eastern Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula in mid-September.
Western Canada actually had most of the year’s top ten weather entries.
On June 29, Canada set a record high of 49.6 degrees Celsius in Lytton, British Columbia but the next day, the village was destroyed by a wildfire which killed two people and displaced 1,200 residents.
Top 10 Weather Stories of 2021:
- Record Heat Under the Dome
- British Columbia’s Flood of Floods
- Canada Dry Coast to Coast
- Wildfire Season – early, active and unrelenting
- Canada rides out four heat waves
- Year of the EF2 Tornado
- Dreaded Arctic Blast Freezes Canada in February
- Another hailer-flooder in Calgary
- Hurricane Larry belonged to Newfoundland
- January Prairie Clipper
More details about each weather story can be found here, https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/top-ten-weather-stories/2021.html
