Expert sees no immediate end to cold and snow

Despite what those famous groundhogs scattered across North America might be suggesting, David Phillips, senior climatologist with the federal Department of the Environment and Climate Change (ECC), expects that Kawartha Lakes and area will not escape the grip of cold weather and record snowfalls until sometime in March.

In a telephone interview with Kawartha Lakes Weekly, Phillips said that to appreciate this winter so far, you have to remember where we came from just a few months ago.

“From September to November 2025, we had the fifth warmest fall on record,” Phillips said. “We had very summerlike weather into late October. Then, with an almost complete absence of fall-like weather we transitioned directly into winter.”

Phillips said that rapid transition to winter for Ontario residents has been a difficult one, and many are finding acclimatizing to a “real winter” a significant challenge.

“December was cold and snowy,” Phillips said. “All but one week of January has continued that template. January temperatures are on average two degrees cooler than we typically get this time of year. We have had 16 days in a row without a melting day with none on the immediate horizon.”

Phillips said that the cold Kawartha Lakes has experienced moving into February is highly unusual, and far more typical of some of the winter weather that was commonplace in the 1970s when cold and snow for months on end was a Canadian winter in a nutshell.

“This has been the winter from hell so far,” Phillips said. “We have had 15 days below -20°C when normally we only get seven. In late January, we had a -35°C day. Those kinds of days seem now to only happen once every couple of years. Folks are paying for this cold with heating bills that are expected to be 10 to 12 per cent higher than normal.”

Phillips said that Kawartha Lakes residents are certainly not done plowing or shovelling snow, despite many residents reporting that they have nowhere to safely dispose of the white stuff they already have.

One hundred cm of snow is normal for this time of year, Phillips said. “So far Kawartha Lakes has received over 200 cm of snow.”

He says since Nov. 1, Kawartha Lakes has had 33 days with significant snow including six days with more than 10 cm of snow, plus another 19 days with trace amounts of snow. Roughly 60 per cent of the days since winter began have had snow or looked like snow adding a lot more stress to people’s lives, particularly those who need to travel for work.

Phillips said the cold weather and snow are the result of a high-pressure system that has settled over Ontario and Quebec. This system is sending tons of cold Arctic air south, producing chilling temperatures and significant amounts of lake effect snow as those fronts cross the moisture rich Great Lakes. Phillips suggested that all the climate modelling being done by ECC says that winter will be at least four full months this year and that it likely won’t really warm up until mid-March.

“Locally, we can’t buy a thaw day,” Phillips said. “So many people have not gone south this year and they are not enjoying this winter weather at all. For outdoor enthusiasts, the weather has been prime for snowmobiling and ice fishing, but even they aren’t keen to go outside at -30°C. This has been a long challenging winter so far, and January was psychologically a tough month for many.”