Winter to wait on the sidelines as El Nino extends fall: The Weather Network outlook

It’s shaping up to be a mild fall across much of Canada, The Weather Network’s forecast suggests, with a potentially historic El Nino expected to prolong the season and delay winter’s arrival.

September and October will still bring the usual swings between warm spells and bursts of chilly, stormy weather, the network’s three-month outlook says. But the balance is expected to trend milder and, in many regions, drier than normal as the season progresses, said senior meteorologist Doug Gillham.

“Winter is probably going to wait on the sidelines for a while,” he said in an interview.

The main reason is El Nino, the climate phenomenon tied to shifting patches of warm water in the Pacific Ocean, Gillham said.

Several forecasters suggest this could be among the strongest El Ninos on record. The global weather disrupter is set to spike temperatures, already elevated due to human-caused climate change, further raising the risk of serious floods, drought and extreme heat in some regions into 2027.

While there will be catastrophic impacts globally, it’s “not all doom and gloom for the fall in Canada,” said Gillham. El Nino tends to shift the storm track south of the border, fill Canada with milder pacific air and limit the ability of cold arctic air to plunge south, he said.

The result could mean fewer classic fall storms, a milder start to winter and fewer Atlantic hurricanes. But an unprecedented El Nino could introduce some surprises and uncertainty into the forecast, Gillham said.

“Don’t be lulled into a sense of, ‘oh we’re just going to have a dry fall and we don’t have to worry about any storms.’ Fewer storms doesn’t mean that the storms that occur won’t pack a punch,” he said.

While El Nino is the main driver of the fall outlook, conditions vary by region.

British Columbia’s reprieve from summer heat came earlier than in recent years. But warmer, drier conditions are expected to dominate the rest of September and into October, which may be of little relief to wildfire-weary communities in the interior, said Gillham.

“The rest of September into the beginning of October is not good news in that we need more rain than we’ve seen,” he said.

Along the coast, precipitation levels are expected to get closer to normal as the season deepens. A delayed start to winter is expected across the province, but alpine regions may just be cold enough to get a decent start to ski season, Gillham said.

Moving east into Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the theme is similar. Milder temperatures are expected to dominate, interrupted at times by shots of cold weather. Most of the Prairies will be on the drier side, with the exception of near-normal conditions in southern Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba.

While stormy weather has hampered the start of harvest season in some regions, “the good news is that our backs aren’t up against the wall with the impending arrival of consistent winter weather,” said Gillham.

“Some years, we’ve seen winter weather show up in September and then it kind of takes over. That is not the concern this year,” he said.

Into Ontario and Quebec, the forecast suggests the rest of September into October is expected to feature typical fall weather.

What counts as typical fall conditions has changed in recent decades, especially in the north. Average fall temperatures are now about 2.4 degrees warmer across the country compared to the mid-20th century as climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, heats the planet.

The forecast’s baseline, or what’s considered normal, is based on a more recent period between 1991 and 2020.

As recent Ontario thunderstorms have shown, the season will feature some high-impact storms, though possibly fewer than normal, Gillham said. A drier weather pattern is expected to settle in later in the fall and persist into November, potentially welcome news for areas such as Ottawa and Niagara after a summer of record rainfall, Gillham said.

And while Gillham still holds out hope for the ski season in B.C. and Alberta’s alpine regions, he’s much less optimistic about what’s in store for Ontario and Quebec.

“We do not expect consistent cold or early winter weather as we wrap up the fall season,” he said of Central Canada.

The quiet hurricane season is expected to continue in Atlantic Canada, but it only takes one storm to make an impact, Gillham said. The very warm Atlantic Ocean temperatures mean any storm that does track toward the region could keep up its intensity and moisture.

Across the region, the forecast suggests near normal precipitation and temperatures, with a late start to consistent wintry weather.

Northern Canada is also expected to see warmer-than-normal conditions, with exception of near-normal temperatures in western parts of Yukon and parts of Baffin Island.

Canada is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, while the Arctic is warming three times faster. Under current climate policies, Canada’s average temperatures are expected to rise by five degrees and Nunavut’s winters could get more than 10 degrees Celsius hotter by the end of the century, a recent federal scientific assessment said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2026.