Cold spring means cool summer for much of Nunavut

“Guess I don’t have to tell you that it has been a cold spring in the Arctic,” Yvonne Bilan-Wallace, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said in a message earlier this week.

Bilan-Wallace said Arviat in particular seemed to freeze into a “winter-like state” over the past few months, with April and May showing the lowest average temperatures since records started in 1978. March came in a close second.

That tundra region spring was the 6th coldest spring in 57 years.

Rankin experienced temperatures below -40 Celsius on four days in March and it dipped to -31.2 C on April 4.

The warmest area in Nunavut this spring was found along the extreme eastern mountain and fiord region, where temperatures were still below normal.

The summer outlook for western Nunavut is for conditions to remain colder than normal.

In much of Baffin Island, weather models predict above normal temperatures this summer.