Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
You weren't imagining it — last month was an unusually hot and dry July in the Yukon. "Well, it was warmer in June, but boy did [temperatures] ever take off in July," said David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada. "We saw temperatures in the Yukon that were two to three-and-a-half degrees warmer than normal."
Spring may be just around the corner in Saskatchewan. Daytime temperatures above freezing this week are a welcome relief from what has been a long, cold winter. Temperatures in Regina are forecast to hit 8 C by the end of the week, while Saskatoon will see highs of 6 C, Swift Current could hit double digits and even Uranium City will reach a high of –1 C.
As conservation authorities in the Ottawa area warn of low water levels on area waterways this spring, Environment Canada's forecast suggests the lack of rain will continue. "It's almost forgotten how to rain in the Ottawa area," said David Phillips, Environment Canada's senior climatologist. Ottawa has received 16.7 mm of rain so far in June, after 13.5 mm of rain fell in May.
After two weeks without significant rainfall and a lack of precipitation in the forecast, May 2021 could be one of the driest months on record in the Ottawa area. David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said 13 millimetres of precipitation rain has fallen in the Ottawa Valley region this month. That's 11 millimetres fewer than the 24 that fell in 1944 — the lowest recorded amount in the last 75 years.
A large swath of warm water spanning thousands of kilometres from the Bering Sea to Mexico, nicknamed by scientists as “the Blob,” has returned to the West Coast, threatening marine life and fisheries. The Blob was christened in 2014, after a similar natural event that spanned two years devastated the salmon industry, damaged ecosystems and disrupted wildlife like whales, sea lions and crabs. “This is a massive pool… of warm water that’s in the Pacific, that is thousands of kilometres huge,” said senior climatologist for Environment Canada David Phillips on CTV’s Your Morning Tuesday. “This one stretches from the Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, right through the Gulf of Alaska, right through to California, British Columbia, and down to Mexico.”
