Spring in reverse? Toronto notches a snowy April surprise
Spring in the Great Lakes is a changeable time of year—and this season has been no exception
We’re halfway through meteorological spring and the wintry weather is still hanging tough across parts of Canada.
If it feels like it’s been an unusually wintry stretch for southern Ontario, the data backs up your hunch. This is one of the rare years when April has ‘out-snowed’ the month of March for folks in Toronto.
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March and April switched places this year
It may seem like an eternity ago, but we actually started this spring on the warmer side with above-seasonal temperatures dominating the month of March across almost all of Canada.
That pattern flipped in time for April, bringing colder-than-normal conditions and routine bouts of ice and snow to the Great Lakes region, culminating in a major ice storm that knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across Ontario.
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Observers at Toronto-Pearson Airport have recorded 6.4 cm of snow so far this April, which is more than double the 3 cm of snow that fell at the airport during the entire month of March. (That’s nothing compared to the 78.2 cm of snow that fell in February.)
2025 will go down as only the 13th year since the 1930s when April has out-snowed March at Toronto-Pearson Airport. The last time this happened was back in 2021.
In fact, the 2020s have produced some strange snow stats across the Greater Toronto Area—with May tying March’s snowfall in 2021, and May actually out-snowing April back in 2020.
We’re all eager for consistently warm springtime weather to arrive in southern Ontario. Winter still holds its ground this time of year, though. Even as average temperatures steadily rise through the month, Toronto averages about 5 cm of snow in a typical April.