Published on January 12, 2024 at 12:00 p.m.
The cold avoided the month of December, at least in southern Quebec. It will arrive in the province next week, but in a fairly polite way. Forecast.
The polar vortex is moving
The polar vortex decided to move this week. He delved a little into the South, represented in this case by the prairies and the Rocky Mountains. In Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, even parts of British Columbia, the effect was striking. Temperatures from -30° to -45° are recorded. You read that right, it's about the temperature on the thermometer and not the feeling of wind chill. In Red Deer, for example, we're talking about a feeling of -55 overnight Friday into Saturday.
Football at -20°
The strudel eventually makes its way to Quebec, but like many Quebecers, he has a slight preference for the south. We are not talking about Mexico here, but about the Midwest of the USA. In Kansas City, Missouri, for example, the NFL playoff game could be played at -21°C, while the average temperature in that city is around 5°C in mid-January. There is a risk of consuming more hot chocolate than beer in the stands.
A polite cold
The cold will not completely ignore us. It will settle quite heavily in southern Quebec all week from January 14th to 20th, but it will not have the same bite as in the west. Maximum temperatures should also be above the -10° mark, slightly below the season's average. Southwest of the Great Lakes, around Chicago, the temperature anomaly will be between 8° and 12° below normal.
The heart of winter
Many will say that this is completely normal because we are in the middle of winter, and they are right. Even if this cold comes a little late this year. We usually see such a sequence around January 6th. This coldest time of the season usually lasts until February 14th.
In collaboration with Patrick Duplessis, meteorologist