December rainy and mild weather near-record breaking in southern Ontario

The sun barely came out in December making it a dreary month but it didn’t quite break records in parts of southern Ontario.

Much of southern Ontario was blanketed in fog and cloud — so much so Niagara Falls disappeared for a short time.

And while some reports indicate Toronto had a record number of rainy days, the same wasn’t true for Mississauga and Hamilton, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Environment Canada keeps records at two locations in the Mississauga and Hamilton area — Pearson Airport and John C. Munro Airport.

At Pearson Airport in Mississauga, there were 16 days with rain in December 2023, the sixth highest number of rainy days in December on record, Steven  Flisfeder, an Environment and Climate Change Canada warning preparedness meteorologist, told insauga.com.

The highest number was s 20 days, in 1972.

At John C. Munro Airport in Hamilton, there were 13 days of rain reported in December. And that is a tie with 2001 for the fifth most rainy days in December.

The record number of days reporting rain was 17 in 2015 for Hamilton.

With the rain, came a higher number of warmer days.

“It was warmer than normal,”  Flisfeder said.

But there were no records set for daytime highs or daytime lows at Mississauga and Hamilton airports, he added. The daytime high and daytime low calculation is an average of all the maximum (for high) and minimum (for low) temperatures across the month.

Pearson Airport had a second place for daytime low, and a third place for daytime high in December. The warmest day was Dec. 9 when the temperature reached 13.1 C.

And John C. Munro had a third place for daytime high and a second place for daytime low. The warmest day was also Dec. 9 when it reached 12.1 C.

Unfortunately, Environment Canada doesn’t keep records for the number of foggy days.

“Anecdotally, I can say it was definitely very foggy,” Flisfeder said.

For more information on historical weather, see the Environment Canada website here.