First day of spring? You could’ve fooled us.
Flurries and colder temperatures are ushering in the change of seasons, a year after Torontonians said goodbye to winter with record-setting warmth.
This year, it doesn’t feel like the first day of spring because the ground is covered with a fresh dusting of snow and the temperature is spending most of the day below the freezing mark.
When spring officially arrived at 7:02 a.m., people were bundled up as they headed to work in -5 C weather with a -11 wind chill. To mark the occasion, the CN Tower was lit up in green and yellow, although people may have felt a shade of blue as they yearned for winter’s end.
Wednesday afternoon’s high is expected to be just zero degrees (the normal high for March 20 is 6 C), almost 22 degrees colder than last year’s all-time high for the day.
From unusually warm a year ago to unseasonably cold on Wednesday, winter isn’t going down without a fight.
To keep warm, people may want to hold onto their memories of last year’s record high of 21.9 C, when residents of southern Ontario had already swapped parkas and tuques for T-shirts and sunglasses as they chilled out in green parks or on patios.
Wednesday’s chilly weather can be counted as a defeat for Wiarton Willie, the famed Ontario groundhog who failed to see his shadow on Groundhog Day and predicted an early spring.
Meanwhile, it will be a few days before Toronto sees a return to seasonal weather.
Overnight, the temperature is dropping to -5 C before rising to 2 C on Thursday afternoon.
The weather is expected to remain just below seasonal through the weekend until Tuesday, when a high of 6 C is possible, along with a chance of flurries or rain.
@ChrisKitching is on Twitter. For instant breaking news, follow @CP24 on Twitter.
