Preliminary look at the temperature pattern for winter 2025-26
Putting everything together, here is our first look at the national temperature pattern that we expect for December, January, and February.
This is a preliminary outlook. The forecast will continue to be fine-tuned in the weeks ahead. (The Weather Network)
We expect that most of Canada will see near-normal temperatures or colder-than-normal temperatures overall. The exceptions are much of Atlantic Canada and parts of northwestern Canada. However, even across these regions, winter is not cancelled—there will still be periods of high-impact winter weather.
Keep in mind that this forecast is an overview for a three-month period and that individual weeks will look quite different at times. We expect that all of southern Canada will see a significant stretch of milder weather during the heart of the season.
The dominant storm track is expected to be into the Great Lakes region and up the St. Lawrence. We also expect an active storm track at times into the B.C. coast.
As we approach winter, we will be interested to see whether La Niña is officially declared. However, the subtle difference between a weak La Niña or a neutral pattern that comes up just short of La Niña criteria won’t be critical to how the winter plays out.
The North Pacific truly is the wild card that will dictate how the upcoming winter will unfold, and that is where the focus of our research will be during the weeks leading up to our final winter forecast, which we will release on Nov. 26.
