No coast was spared from 2024’s extreme weather impacts
From hail to heatwaves, floods to fires, Environment Canada selected the year’s top 10 weather stories
Bullets and buckets from the sky, a wildfire threatening a historic town and extreme heat records broken above the Arctic Circle.
These are just some of the top weather stories Environment and Climate Change Canada has included in its list this year, which saw seemingly every coast affected by some form of extreme or unusual weather.
Alberta hailstorm in August
One of the most dramatic — and damaging — events this year was an end-of-summer thunderstorm that struck hard and fast. Residents in Calgary and surrounding areas shared photos and videos of shattered windshields and dented roofs.
Those few hours turned out to be the second costliest insured event in Canadian history, with $2.8 billion in losses, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. (The costliest was the 2016 wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alta.)
Summer flooding in Ontario
Heavy July downpours turned a major artery into the city of Toronto into a pool — twice in one week. The next month, nearby Mississauga saw flash flooding and rain that had fire crews rescuing dozens of people.
The shock exposed infrastructure gaps, with experts saying that climate change’s unpredictability means cities can’t rely on past records to build future systems.
Jasper’s July wildfires
Nestled in the heart of natural forest beauty, the people of Jasper, Alta., had very little notice in late July to get out of the way of fast-moving wildfires.
By the time the smoke cleared, one-third of the town was destroyed. The national park saw more than 32,000 hectares burned — the worst in more than a century.
See how fast the wildfire tore through Jasper in this detailed breakdown by CBC Edmonton’s Nicholas Frew.
Atmospheric rivers in British Columbia
The most recent on ECCC’s list were the atmospheric rivers that parked over British Columbia in September and October. The latter, so intense, it killed two motorists on Vancouver Island and an elementary school teacher in Coquitlam.
The mid-October event dumped as much as 300 millimeters of rain in some parts of B.C. over a couple of days.
The duality of June 19
Two extremes hit two regions of Canada on the same day: June 19. The East baked — and set more than 100 new daily temperature records.
But in the West, Alberta set 13 records for low temperatures, with Hendrickson Creek (about 150 kilometres north of Jasper) recording a new daily minimum record of -2.7 C.
Scientists with Environment Canada say this summer see-saw is normal, but the record setting extremes were not.
Arctic heat waves
Canada’s North is warming four times faster than the rest of the world, and this summer, people saw daily temperature records broken.
