Published January 19, 2024 at 4:32 p.m.
Montreal hit -15 degrees on Friday morning for the first time of the winter season. What is remarkable, however, is that we only reached this value very late.
The cold heart of winter
If Quebec has entered the middle of winter, the main thing we can say is that it is currently experiencing cool temperatures, to say the least. Friday morning was the coldest morning of the season in the south of the province. In Montreal we reached -16.2 degrees on Friday morning, while in Gatineau the temperature read -17.4 degrees.
Late
The first -15 degrees of the season come rather late in the metropolis. In fact, this value has not been reached this late since 2001-2002. The normal time to reach these temperatures should be earlier in the season. Normally we expect it around mid-December.
No extreme cold…yet!
We could be lucky that the severe cold will arrive later than expected. And we were even happy that we didn't experience an extreme cold spell. However, you will have to temper your enthusiasm as last year an extreme cold warning was in place later in February. In addition, such a warning was in effect on Friday morning in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. This could happen in the south of the province sooner than we think.
In collaboration with Nicolas Lessard, meteorologist.