Southern Ontario has been dealing with some brutally cold, record-breaking winter weather lately, and it doesn’t look like we’re in the clear just yet. If you’re in Toronto, the national forecast suggests the next few months have a higher chance of running cooler than usual.
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has released its updated three-month seasonal outlook for February-April 2026, and while much of southern Ontario sits in the normal or near-normal range overall, the probability breakdown for Toronto tilts toward colder-than-average conditions.
For Toronto, ECCC’s table shows a 50-59% chance that temperatures end up below normal across the three-month period, compared with a 30-39% chance of near-normal temperatures and just a 10-19% chance of above-normal warmth.
For precipitation, Toronto is labelled as “below”, meaning that Torontonians can expect less overall precipitation than normal in the three months! There’s a 40-49% chance the city gets less total precipitation than normal from February to April, a 30-39% chance of near-normal precipitation and a 20-29% chance of wetter-than-normal conditions.
Here’s the twist: while the next three months might present near-normal or slightly cooler conditions, ECCC is also warning that 2026 is likely to be among the hottest years on record globally!
According to a recent news release, ECCC says global temperatures are expected to stay at historically high levels this year, with the global mean temperature projected to fall between 1.35°C and 1.53°C above pre-industrial levels (with a central estimate of 1.44°C). There’s also a 12% chance that global temperatures exceed the 1.5°C threshold in a single year. If so, 2026 would actually mark the 13th consecutive year with global temperatures more than 1.0°C above pre-industrial levels.
“There is a greater than 99% chance that 2026 will be hotter than every year on record prior to 2023,” the release said.
Even with global temperatures trending higher, it looks like Torontonians will have to get through this last stubborn cold stretch before warm weather really sets in!
