It may be the last official day of winter, but it looks and feels a lot more like summer on the streets of Toronto.
On Monday, the temperature hit 22.8 C at Pearson International Airport, breaking the all-time record for March 19.
It's part of a rare March heat wave that's broken three such records over the past week, while bringing temperatures you'd expect to see in Florida or California - not Canada.
"Since 1937 we have always had at least some snow after March 1, but this could be the very first year that we don't and that's unbelievable," David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada, told CP24.
The average temperature for March is around 4 C, but through the first 19 days of the month the average temperature has been 10.8 C in Toronto.
The spring thaw is showing no signs of slowing down either.
Warm temperatures are forecast for the foreseeable future with a high of 22 C predicted for Tuesday, a high of 26 C expected on Wednesday and 25 C on Thursday.
The temperatures are the result of hot air making its way north from the U.S. southeast; not the official arrival of global warming and the end of winter as we know it, Phillips said.
"I think what we may be seeing is a dress rehearsal for what winters may be like 40 years from now, but I don't think we can suggest this is coming out of our tail pipes and smoke stacks because we know where the air is coming from," he said. "If you go there, what do you say next winter when it turns out to be nasty? Last winter was cold and snowy."
