{"id":464989,"date":"2026-02-10T03:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T03:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/464989\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T03:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T03:13:13","slug":"ontario-breaks-free-from-extreme-cold-but-winter-a-long-drawn-out-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/464989\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario breaks free from extreme cold, but winter a \u2018long drawn-out affair\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

After weeks of extreme cold<\/a>, Ontario may finally be inching its way out of Old Man Winter\u2019s<\/a> grasp \u2014 at least in terms of low temperatures.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Global News chief meteorologist Anthony Farnell says the cold air that was brought down from Siberia and the North Pole has finally moved off, bringing with it a chance for better conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely the coldest air of the winter is now behind us, so we\u2019re pretty confident about that,\u201d Farnell said. \u201cIt was very cold this past weekend. That air came direct from the North Pole and that really was kind of the grand finale, if you will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going forward, Farnell said, the province is more likely to see days of above-freezing temperatures in the single digits with \u201cmild temperatures\u201d going through the Family Day weekend and the next 10 days or so.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

However, when asked what \u201cmild\u201d means, Farnell cautioned it doesn\u2019t mean temperatures such as 10 C but it will be above normal. The average high for Toronto on Monday, for example, was -1 C.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo above that -1 during the day, and then at night, we\u2019re not going to be dealing with -20s like we\u2019ve had,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tExtreme cold grips Toronto, wind chills to near -35 C\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Ontario saw its first thaw on Monday, after seeing wind chills bring the temperature into the -20s and -30s on Saturday and Sunday. Toronto saw the wind chill make it feel closer to -33C on Saturday and -34 C in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

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Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n

Part of the change in the coming month is due to a change to the jet stream. Farnell noted a big ridge on the West Coast has led to the spring-like temperatures seen in places like Vancouver and Calgary with double-digit highs.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo it\u2019s been a big bridge out west and then this big trough, that polar vortex in the east, now we\u2019re seeing things flatten out,\u201d Farnell said. \u201cSo we\u2019re getting relatively mild air in here that still is cold enough for it to snow sometimes, but not to the extremes we\u2019ve seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s why Farnell says winter isn\u2019t over yet, noting Ontarians should still expect snow later next week with \u201cquite a bit\u201d of snow still expected later this month.<\/p>\n

He did, however, advise that the higher temperatures could mean people finally see some of the \u201cmassive\u201d snow banks melt each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is nice kind of break, our February version of the January thaw,\u201d Farnell said. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t mean winter\u2019s done and I still see quite a bit of cold and snow as we get towards the end of February and especially March.<\/p>\n

\u201cI dont think this winter\u2019s going to just disappear like we\u2019ve seen in past years. This one\u2019s going to be a long, drawn-out affair, so just keep that in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tA look at the weather set for Toronto in the coming seven days.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAnthony Farnell\/Global News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After weeks of extreme cold, Ontario may finally be inching its way out of Old Man Winter\u2019s grasp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[150453,172443,43,44,41,39,42,40,1133,8864],"class_list":["post-464989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-cold-weather","tag-extreme-cold","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-weather","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}