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Below-freezing minimum temperatures in July are normal only for higher elevations on Ellesmere and Baffin Islands in Canada’s far northeast. Much of southern Canada experiences minimum temperatures above 10ºC in July. Cooler minimum temperatures at higher elevations over the Cordillera are clearly evident. Along the north shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and along the St Lawrence River valley as far east as Montréal, minimum temperatures in July exceed 15ºC.
Maximum temperatures in July are above freezing across all of Canada except for high elevations on Ellesmere Island. Maximum temperatures exceed 25ºC in the valley bottoms of southern British Columbia, across the southern Prairies, in southern Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River valley almost to the City of Québec and over parts of central New Brunswick. For many of these southern regions, this is the height of summer, with plentiful sunshine and warm dry days. Maximum temperatures along coastal regions of Atlantic Canada and British Columbia are moderated by the oceans but, even there, maximum temperatures near or above 20ºC are the norm.
Data Source and Methodology
The 1971 to 2000 temperature climate normals were calculated by Environment Canada in a manner consistent with the methodology of the World Meteorological Organization. For temperature, a monthly maximum (minimum) average was computed from the daily maximum (minimum) temperature observations. The normal is a simple arithmetic average of the monthly minimum or maximum temperatures for the specified period. These spatial models have been developed using the thin plate smoothing spline algorithms of ANUSPLIN, which is a mathematically sophisticated approach to generating climate maps at varying spatial and temporal scales. The Canadian Forest Service has been working in partnership with several staff in Environment Canada’s Meteorological Service of Canada, the Australian National University (the creator of ANUSPLIN) and others to develop a variety of climate models that cover both Canada and North America.
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