THUNDER BAY — Residents of the Thunder Bay region may need to dig out their heavy winter clothing earlier than normal this year.
Longer-range modelling of weather trends for Northwestern Ontario suggests that December will be colder than usual.
"The way things are shaping up now, there seems to be a pretty strong signal indicating it's expected to be somewhat colder than normal," Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson said Wednesday.
"Given that it's a trend forecast, we could still expect some periods of mild weather and some periods of really cold weather, but overall it's expected to be colder than average."
Coulson said the typical long-term daily high at Thunder Bay Airport at the beginning of December is -3 C, and the overnight low is about -13.
By mid-December, those temperatures fall to -6 and -17 respectively, and by the end of the month they drop to -8 and -20.
The current forecast calls for an overnight low of -19 C by next Monday.
At present, Coulson said, it looks as if Thunder Bay will receive near-normal levels of precipitation in December.
At the airport, the long-term snowfall total for the month is 44 centimetres.
