Taken from Graham Saunders, Weather Whys, March 20, 2024 Edition

So, a local media headline today is “Spring to begin with abnormally cold weather”. The Spring Equinox took place at 11:06 PM yesterday. If the forecast overnight minimum of -22° takes place, it will be the coldest overnight since the end of February. Brrr, but comfortably above the record low of -28.9° C set in 1965. I usually hold off on weather predictions until the end of articles but here goes: – temperatures in the Thunder Bay area will become seasonal later in this week – the rest of March is likely to be drier and windier than normal. I’ve been talking about global trends in recent Weather Whys columns. I noted that a shift in climatic indicators took place in March 2023. Here are a couple more predictions. – The average temperature of the tropics (latitude 23.5° N to 23.5° S, 0° to 360° E) will likely reach 27° C in a few weeks and peak in early May. This has many implications, including for formation of tropical storms and for global food production. – The global average temperature will continue to exceed temperatures from one year ago for the next two seasons. All or most months this year will be 1.5° C or warmer than preindustrial temperatures (average 1850 to 1900). February was 1.6° C to 1.8° C above preindustrial. The above are my predictions. They are consistent with James Hansen, “godfather” of climatology and co-author of recent “Global warming in the pipeline” and Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Schmidt says, “And we haven’t really known what’s going on since about March of last year.” He has called the situation “disquieting.” Of course, it is speculative what happens at the regional level of Northwest Ontario. I suggest we apply a version of the precautionary principle and assume that the current El Niño and other global extremes are likely to disrupt supply chains. The coming growing season can provide an opportunity to hedge our bets about food availability. Increasing garden planting, planting in pots on decks and balconies and contracting to buy from local farmers are good options. Moving our food systems from “Nowhere” to “Now Here” (title of a recent article by Sarah Siska in the Chronicle Journal and the Climate Times) is prudent even if severe weather is not as I am predicting.

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