Ontario has seen one of the screwiest Julys ever when it comes to weather
Between tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, extreme heat waves, random bouts of hail, a bright red sun punctuating eerily hazy skies and more, Ontario and Canada at large has seen an extremely messed up July 2021, weather-wise, The Weather Network has noted.
is anybody else even a little bit concerned about the red sun in Toronto? no? just me? cool
— Chelsea McBride (@crymmusic) July 19, 2021
While temperature records were broken and hundreds of people died from heat on the west coast, Ontario has had its own spate of heat warnings and oppressive humidity this month — along with thunderstorm warnings, air quality warnings, tornado warnings and the like over the past 30 days.
Amid spans of rain, unseasonable cold and dreariness, intense heat also reared its head, as did a pungently smoky atmosphere and some of the worst air quality in the world due to hundreds of wildfires that are still burning in the northwest of the province.
Both coastal Provinces are experiencing record heat , erratic weather. Ontario has been cool. Single digits at night in July? Not in my 50 years.
— Stephen (@Steve95269555) July 27, 2021
What's up?
Hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest in the areas of Red Lake, Kenora and Sioux Lookout have been decimated and evacuations have ensued as new blazes still continue to pop up over a large chunk of Ontario.
As a result, parts of the province — such as Toronto — have multiple times this month been among the top places for poorest air quality internationally, beating out notoriously smoggy locales like Beijing, Jakarta, Kanpur and others.
Toronto has been a mix of constant heat, rain, and like the 3rd worst air quality on the planet. 🤢 https://t.co/mGewuRPdJA
— The Belt Collecthausen (@KawhiMeARiver6) July 27, 2021
July also brought thousands of fires in B.C. and the prairies, with smoke carrying thousands of kilometres, all the way to Atlantic Canada and the U.S.
"Not only did the smoke obscure the midsummer sun, but winds pushed much of that smoke down to the surface and resulted in long periods of dangerous air quality for much of the country," the Weather Network says on the subject of this month's climate.
"Southern Ontario endured several days of thick smoke in mid-July, causing the region's air quality to plummet to its worst level in two decades. Air quality issues reached deep into the United States, as well."
Toronto has had the worst air quality in the world with the smoke from the raging forest fires in Ontario. Yeah, let's all make s'mores and pretend climate change isn't happening.🔥🌲 Naturalize all those parking lots so rain doesn't cause flooding.
— Maggie (@MaggieLHall) July 27, 2021
On the topic of Atlantic Canada, that part of the country encountered some freakish tropical storms, twisters and the remnants of hurricanes through July, while Ontario had 10 of the 12 tornadoes that touched down on Canadian soil this month.
"This puts the province ahead of the number of tornadoes reported in Oklahoma so far in 2021," TWN writes.
Canada's confirmed #tornado count thus far. Considering the weather pattern has been immovable through all of July, not much surprise the Prairie numbers are down, while Ontario & Quebec is up. Note: the little numbers in yellow are the annual average per region. pic.twitter.com/oktfqBQIl8
— Chris Murphy TWN (@MurphTWN) July 29, 2021
Looking more globally, floods, droughts, wildfires and more extreme weather phenomena have wreaked havoc in multiple continents, making it pretty hard to deny or ignore how the climate is changing and what role we may be playing in that change.
