Iqaluit gets a month's worth of rain in 9 days

Environment Canada has confirmed what residents in Nunavut's capital know all too well — it has been a cold, dreary start to summer on southern Baffin Island.

In the last few weeks, temperatures in Iqaluit have hovered around 2 C.

"I've counted the number of double digital temperatures say at 10 degrees or more," said David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada.

"You've had none of those so far where you normally would get 11 or 12 of those."

Not only has the weather been cool, it's been wet too. Seemingly endless rain and fog have delayed several flights in Iqaluit, Cape Dorset, Pangnirtung and other communities because of low visibility. That has left many passengers stranded.

"My son was here to see a dentist but the dentist couldn't make it because of the weather. So I've been trying to go home all week but the planes haven't been able to fly or land here in Iqaluit," said Sharon Akulukjuk from Pangnirtung.

Lauren Achtemichuk is visiting Nunavut and said it has been frustrating.

"There's nothing we can really do because it's the weather...before it was the wind in Pang that kept us from landing, now it's the fog in Iqaluit."

On pace to break record

The deluge is something normally seen in tropical countries, not in the Arctic, Phillips said.  

Over the first nine days of July, Iqaluit got 66.6 millimetres of rain. The normal figure for the same period is 15.1 millimetres. Typical rainfall for the entire month is 51.9 millimetres, meaning July in Iqaluit will be wetter than average. 

The Nunavut capital is actually on pace to break the record for its all-time wettest July: 157.3 millimetres in 1959. 

Weather systems from the U.S. and eastern Canada have developed in the North Atlantic and crossed into southern Baffin Island, he said. They are slow-moving, which is why there were so many rainy days in Iqaluit and Kuujjuaq but not in communities farther north such as Pond Inlet, Clyde River and Resolute.

"You take the last 10 days of June and you add the 10 days of July, my gosh you add that all up and we say in 23 days there's been rain on at least 21 of them (in Iqaluit), maybe just a trace and sometimes a real gusher of rain," Phillips said.

Phillips said it doesn't seem fair that people in Western Canada are suffering from high temperatures and forest fires while the eastern Arctic is dealing with so much of rainfall. 

"It sort of reminds me of that cartoon with the big, black cloud hanging over an individual as he walks around." 

But no one is hoping that this July will make the record books, especially as the daylight hours get progressively shorter.

"I think, even for northerners, you are getting a little fed up with that kind of weather," Phillips said.

Next week looks a little more promising with the sun expected to make an appearance and temperatures on some days above 10C.