It's not your imagination. Summer really has been a bust.

Cool weather has some feeling the heat TheStar.com - GTA - Cool weather has some feeling the heat

July 18, 2009

Nick Aveling
STAFF REPORTER

It's not your imagination. Summer really has been a bust.

If July were to end today, it would be the coldest in the GTA since 1992. We also had the coldest June since 1993.

Whether that's a good thing depends on whom you ask.

As far as Ontario's farmers are concerned, the answer is obvious. Horticultural crops – mainly berries at this time of year – have been decimated. And other crops aren't faring much better.

"We're two weeks behind season on sweet corn," said Bette Jean Crews, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. "And we still get those early frosts, so (a late summer) doesn't lengthen the season, it just shortens it."

Field crops, including wheat and soy, have also seen lower yields, she said. And it gets worse: "If we continue to get cold, damp weather at harvest, we get mould, and then it's all rejected," she said.

The OFA is lobbying the provincial government for weather insurance. Meanwhile, said Crews, all farmers can do is hope.

But a cool summer is not without benefits. Energy consumption province-wide dropped 10 per cent in June compared with last year. About a third of the drop is attributable to the weather, the rest to a slumping manufacturing sector.

The biggest drop has been during peak afternoon hours, when air conditioner use tends to climb with the temperature.

"If we were to get extreme weather, the (energy demand) peaks could be 20 to 40 per cent higher," said Alexandra Campbell, spokeswoman for Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator.

With fewer, less drastic peaks, she said, the need to use fossil fuels for power is reduced. Instead, the province is able to rely on its baseload source of nuclear energy. Compared with this time last year, Ontario's energy producers are burning 45 per cent less fossil fuels.

And that means less smog.

This time last year, the city had seen eight smog days. In 2005, the smoggiest summer on record, we had 35. The current total for 2009: one.

Another benefit? As the city strike continues, temporary garbage dump sites are not nearly as putrid as they would be in hotter weather.

That luck could soon run out. Environment Canada weather models show a return to seasonal temperatures toward the end of the month.