Frustrated Torontonians are not exactly singing in the rain about the news that officially, this is Toronto's wettest summer on record.
"We'll remember this summer not as the summer from hell, but of disappointment," said David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada.
"People are feeling that it doesn't matter if they save money on air conditioning or that they're healthier because there's no smog. It's just too wet and stormy."
Around 3 p.m. Saturday, the record for June 1-Aug. 31 rainfall – 335.9 millimetres set in 1986 – was broken. But it didn't stop there.
As of midnight on Saturday, 354.2 millimetres of rain had been recorded at Pearson International Airport from June 1 to Aug. 9.
"Every day we get rain we're just going to continue to break the previous record until Aug. 31," Phillips said.
It's also already the wettest January-to-August period recorded at Pearson in 70 years, with 705 millimetres of precipitation. The next closest is 679.3 millimetres in 1945.
"What's remarkable about this is the contrast with last year, which was one of our worst droughts," Phillips said.
The weather has also been fickle, with bouts of sunshine and rain in the same day. From June 1 to Aug. 10, it has rained on 41 of 71 days, but there have been only four days without sunshine since May.
No city in Ontario has had more rain. In fact, only one in Canada – Quebec City – has had more rain than Toronto this summer. Toronto even had five times as much rain as Vancouver during June and July.
The good news is that Toronto has had only nine smog days and last year there were 24. "The big smoke has been replaced by the big wet."
Weather systems lingering above the GTA this summer are misplaced, he added. "They belong further north."
Only a short drive away, in London and Windsor, rain levels are close to normal.
Torontonians won't get a break this week, said Phillips, as the forecast includes sun and showers.
But don't write an obituary for the summer yet. "Everyone thinks our forecasts are as big of a washout as the weather, but we're saying August and September are going to be drier than normal."
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