Dead of winter dead ahead for Ottawa
Jan. 19 marks the most miserable day of this cold, dark season in the capital, based on 3 decades of data
The dead of winter. Think hunched shoulders, chilblained toes and chronic cabin fever: in other words, the most intensely awful test of the season.
Now, Environment Canada's senior climatologist, Dave Phillips, has determined exactly when Canadians can expect that misery to arrive, no matter where they live.
For Ottawa and the rest of Central Canada, the dead of winter is dead ahead. In the capital, it hits Sunday, Jan. 19. Toronto gets its dose three days later.
Phillips achieved such precision by crunching temperature data spanning 30 years, from 1981 to 2010, and determining where the lowest lows tend to occur. Climate change may cause shifts here and there, but average highs and lows remain relative, according to Phillips.
Don't confuse the dead of winter with the winter solstice on Dec. 21, the shortest, darkest day of the year.
"There's a little piece of folklore which is quite apropos: 'As the days lengthen, the cold strengthens,'" Phillips said.
But don't despair. By the dead of winter, "you can say statistically there's more winter behind me than ahead of me," Phillips pointed out. "You've broken the back of winter."
Photo challenge
CBC Ottawa is searching for the photos and memes that best capture the frozen misery that is the dead of winter.
We'll share the best — or is that worst? — examples here.
Send your entries to [email protected] or via Twitter @cbcottawa.
