More snow on the way for Ontario and Quebec. Will winter ever end?

With the prairies getting another dumping of snow over the weekend, and yet another winter blast on the way for Ontario and Quebec, what happened to our early spring?

A weather system is moving into Ontario today, bringing a mix of snow, ice pellets and freezing rain that is likely to make tonight's commute home a real headache for anyone in southwestern and central regions of the province, including the GTA. Eastern Ontario and southern Quebec are expected to see significant snowfall from this storm as it pushes to the east overnight and into tomorrow. Environment Canada has issued snowfall warnings for southwestern Quebec, including the Montreal area, as 15-25 cm of snow are expected over the next 24 hours or so.

So, what's going on? We're just two days away from the first day of spring, and certain promises were made.

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Well, there wasn't much of a consensus from the various groundhogs last month, but some of them seemed to be pretty bang-on for their region, at least. Nova Scotia's Shubenacadie Sam and Quebec's Fred la Marmotte (who lives on the Gaspé Peninsula) both predicted a longer winter and those regions have seen winter storm after winter storm blast through, burying them under snow and ice.

On the other hand, Ontario's Wiarton Willie and Manitoba's Winnipeg Willow said that there'd be an early spring, and yet Old Man Winter seems to have locked on to the prairies with a death-grip, and Ontario and Quebec have had several messy winter storms blow through, inflicting commuter nightmares on the most populated region of the country.

Of course, there's little scientific reason to trust Groundhog Day for our seasonal forecasts. A study showed that Pennsylvania's Punxsutawney Phil is right only 39 per cent of the time.

Human forecasters have a bit more success in their efforts, though. Environment Canada seasonal forecasts show predicted temperature and precipitation trends for different time periods, and include an accuracy map. For temperature, except for some apparent frustrations with the southern prairie provinces and northwestern Ontario, their 1-3 month predictions show between a 50-75 per cent accuracy (up to 60-75% in more heavily populated areas). Precipitation is, perhaps understandably, a bit more hit-and-miss, but it's temperature that really determines whether we're going to have wintry blasts or spring showers, so that's definitely the one to pay more attention to if you want to know if spring is going to arrive early.

So, what should we expect for spring?

According to Environment Canada, the areas that should see higher than normal temperatures over the next three months are north of eastern Lake Superior and Lake Huron, eastern Ontario, Quebec, eastern Nunavut, and the Maritimes. It's also possible that the southern prairie provinces will see the same trend, but the forecast accuracy for those areas isn't any better than flipping a coin, so don't count on that. Although there's a slight chance that B.C.'s South Coast will be stuck with a chilly spring, for the most part, the rest of the country is expected to get fairly typical temperatures for the season.

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As for precipitation, even though the forecast isn't quite as reliable, predictions are that southern and central BC, as well as the central and northern prairie provinces and up into Nunavut will be wetter than normal, while southern regions of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, as well as all of Nova Scotia and P.E.I. can expect to see a drier season.

Will these forecasts pan out? Unfortunately, we'll have to wait and see.

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