Canada’s senior climatologist, David Phillips, says Covid-19 and its aftermath is the top news story of 2020 as he unveiled the top 10 weather events of the year.
Phillips says the coronavirus is the largest public health crisis in over a century.
He says there is real hope the threat will come to an end with the vaccine.
But he says extreme weather remained a destructive event this year and cost the Canadian economy billions.
He says it was the 24th year in a row of warming trends.
He says there were 93 significant events in Canada in 2020 and determining the top ten was an effort.
He says the August long weekend was the tenth biggest weather event in Canada.
Phillips says the cold spring was the 8th biggest weather event in 2020 and made it easier for Canadians to self-isolate.
There were 77 tornadoes documented in Canada this year but the most intense was in Manitoba on August 7th south of Virden with winds over 265 kilometers an hour.
The tornado is number 7.
Hurricanes in Atlantic Canada was number 6 with heavy snow in St. John’s Newfoundland as number 5.
The endless hot summer in Eastern Canada is number 4, flood in Fort McMurray number 3 and number 2 is B.C.’s September skies…all smoke no fire.
He says it was a quiet forest fire season but there was smoke from the U.S. eastern seaboard coming north.
The top weather event was heavy hail in Calgary on June 13th.
Hailstones the size of tennis balls caused the biggest hail damage value in Canadian history, 1.3 billion dollars.
