Zoom in on nearly any part of Canada this summer and you’re likely to find people suffering from various forms of extreme weather.
Rain, Rain Go Away
As I write this, it’s raining again and forecast to rain all night. We’ve lived in our home for 36 years and have never seen anything like this with our backyard turned into a massive swamp multiple times already this summer.
No doubt you’ve seen videos of the geyser at Commonwealth Stadium where the Elks play football. During a July rainstorm, manhole covers shot into the air, streets flooded along with basements, and some underpasses were repeatedly unpassable because of high water.
And this July there have been tornadoes touch down in multiple rural Alberta communities. Already provincial numbers are up by 75% over last year with six weeks to go in the season and last year was 40% up over the previous year.
Between the beginning of June and Tuesday July 28th, the Edmonton region has been saturated by 580mm of rain. The previous record from 1953 was 417mm but that covered June to August. We’ve got another month to go!
Katharine Hayhoe
Katharine Hayhoe lives in the Toronto area and along with her neighbours, she’s feeling the effects of wildfire smoke. On Sunday July 19th, there were 950 wildfires burning from BC to the East Coast. The wildfires prompted Environment Canada to issue air quality warnings from B.C. to Quebec, as well as the Northwest Territories. Hayhoe is no stranger to weather issues. I’ve written about her scientific work on climate change disasters. All fact, no fluff.
Katharine is the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy and her research currently focuses on establishing a scientific basis for assessing the regional to local-scale impacts of climate change on human systems and the natural environment.
950 simultaneous wildfires sound extraordinary and extremely severe but is it a record? No. The record was set in 1989 with over 950 fires burning simultaneously and over 10,000 fires during the fire season.
However, the recent numbers are undeniably massive and the area burned and the intensity of destruction in recent years have shattered modern historical records.
Why?
What’s behind the raging wildfires and record rainfall?
What does it all mean?
Is climate change the culprit in all or any of these record effects?
Climate Change?
Scientific studies—including some of Hayhoe’s own research—have long warned that continued fossil fuel emissions will make future wildfire seasons increasingly severe.
But climate change isn’t the sole reason.
Alberta’s wild summer 2026 weather is driven by a strong transition to El Niño, high global ocean temperatures, and heavy localized atmospheric moisture acting as fuel for severe storms.
Dr Hayhoe notes that recent heatwaves are breaking previous all-time highs by margins far greater than historically seen, fueled by an increasingly thick “blanket” of greenhouse gases and she also warns against relying strictly on fear or doom-based messaging.
What do you think? Please post your comment below. Thank you.
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