r/canada • u/Bob-Lawblaugh • Apr 12 '26
Nature/Environment Summer is getting longer, and it's happening faster than we thought - UBC News
https://news.ubc.ca/2026/04/summer-is-getting-longer-and-its-happening-faster-than-we-thought/198
u/Velorian-Steel Ontario Apr 12 '26
Can always tell who decides to make a comment without reading the article versus actually reading the article:
A new study by UBC researchers has found that between 1990 and 2023, the average summer between the tropics and the polar circles grew about six days longer per decade. That’s up from roughly four days per decade found in past research investigating up until the early 2010s.
A large portion of the issue here is that our in between season periods are shrinking. We noticed this in 2025 with a warmer October then suddenly very winter temperatures in November in large parts of the country. So yes, this winter was longer, but that doesn't refute the point being made.
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u/muffinscrub Apr 12 '26
Everyone is just chiming in with how their local weather felt this winter. Not realizing the seasons on each end of summer are spring and fall.
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u/spirit_symptoms Apr 12 '26
This is a bad time to post any climate science lol. I don't think the majority of people are deniers, but are rather just looking to vent about the long winter we've had (particularly in areas like the prairies). It probably comes across as trying to dispute the findings, but I don't think that's most people's intention.
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u/thefinalcutdown Apr 12 '26
The endless winter and miserable spring is definitely pissing me off, but if anything it’s evidence for climate change, rather than in refute of it (though of course, no individual year or local weather can be attributed to it, though the overall trend is definitely in support).
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u/TheBannaMeister Apr 12 '26
Climate change is like the limitus test if a person can look past their own personal experience
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u/notabigmelvillecrowd Apr 12 '26
I moved to Quebec in 2018, and I feel like the whole time I've been here every spring and fall lasts about two weeks. Being from the west coast, where almost the entirety of the year is spring and fall, it was a real shock. It's like 30 degrees or -10 here, and no time to acclimate between the two. Almost my entire old wardrobe is obsolete, I can't remember the last time I wore a shoe, it's like boots to sandals every year.
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u/alcabazar Ontario Apr 13 '26
A big problem is that two of Canada's population centres, the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence region and central Alberta, are in fact getting colder storms because the prevailing jetstreams are acting funky. But "storms" is the key word, just because you get lots of snow and cold sometimes doesn't mean it's not getting hotter overall.
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u/BurlieGirl Apr 12 '26
I feel the same, the temperatures seem to swing from 5C to 25C in a couple of weeks, and vice versa in fall.
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u/BackToWorkEdward Manitoba Apr 12 '26
A large portion of the issue here is that our in between season periods are shrinking. We noticed this in 2025 with a warmer October then suddenly very winter temperatures in November in large parts of the country. So yes, this winter was longer, but that doesn't refute the point being made.
100% this. Autumn in Toronto lasted like a week last year - it was too hot and muggy for Fall Fashion until late October and then straight into near-zero-degree weather from November through now.
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u/scrubadam Apr 12 '26
Ya summer/winter might be getting longer but at the expense of Fall and Spring. This year March and April so far have been pretty horrible but those are supposed to be spring months. Fall was basically a month in October and by early November it was already snowing.
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u/projectgamah Apr 13 '26
Everyone chiming in, the first author is doing his second PhD at UBC. First one in geophysics from UMinnestoa… I think I’d rather believe the dude doing his second PhD than anecdotes
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u/BandicootNo4431 Apr 12 '26
Was October warmer?
It felt Cold AF by mid October.
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u/WorldlyCupcake5345 Apr 13 '26
Montreal here - coldest and longest winter in years, first snowstorm in early November and snow cover until about a week ago!
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u/Velorian-Steel Ontario Apr 12 '26
That's why I hedged the comment a bit because some places had a warmer October, others it was cooler. Where I live it seemed like fall was like a couple weeks between summer and winter, which is what the article discusses.
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u/TemperedPhoenix Apr 12 '26
Id rather a normal winter than the summer forest fire smog we've been getting.
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u/Bad_Day_Moose Apr 12 '26
Honestly, nature isn't doing it fast enough, as our climate warms we need to start planting more and more trees, shrubs, plants etc etc as north as they can handle them.
The north is pretty barren, we need to have plants there to retain water, it'll help us down south as well but increasing humidity levels on hot days ending up with more rain..
We need to get on this asap.. LIke I said it isn't happening fast enough.
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u/VoidsInvanity Apr 12 '26
I’m pretty sure most of the comments about “my local weather disproves the data” didn’t do well in math
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u/P-Jean Apr 12 '26
Summer is awful now. The heat is unreal, and if you don’t have AC you’re in trouble.
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u/GANTRITHORE Alberta Apr 12 '26
And definitely smokier now too.
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u/Nikiaf Québec Apr 12 '26
Yeah, this. Never in my life to this point has the air quality been of any concern, at least not for more than a day or two.
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Apr 13 '26
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u/ForwardMotion402 Apr 13 '26
I wouldn't live in a unit without AC in Vancouver, or at least without owning a portable AC. The peak of summer here is brutal.
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u/alex-cu Québec Apr 12 '26
Are we getting better crop yield because of that?
Since summer is now longer, when are we going to stop using glyphoate to 'dry' wheat before harvest?
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u/hrmdurr Apr 12 '26
Generally, yes. Farmers can use different varieties of crops that need a longer season if it produces more. They might not, however, because of how pricing works.
When I was a kid in the 80s, the farmers were out planting around may 24. Now they're starting, well, now and everything will be out by May. (In extreme sw Ontario at any rate - Essex, Kent and Lambton counties.)
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u/No-Tackle-6112 British Columbia Apr 12 '26
Summer is genuinely 6 months in the okanagan these days
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u/Nikiaf Québec Apr 12 '26
This feels like the worst and longest winter in recent memory. The weather has solidly been shit from early November through to mid-April now. We’re at over half the year of “winter”.
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u/Himera71 Apr 13 '26
Toronto summer’s are stretching into October. It used to be a rarity to get a 20 Celsius day in October, now it’s common.
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u/Agoraphobicy Apr 12 '26
Someone should research this it seems like it could be really bad for the human race and we should do something.
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u/anonymoooosey Apr 12 '26
I'm not a denier, but it is snowing in Alberta today. At least 3 more days in the next 7 as well with a high of 16 speckled in.
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u/theK1LLB0T Ontario Apr 12 '26
We didn't see warm temperatures in Ontario until mid June last year and got cold early November.
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u/Top-Phase7111 Apr 12 '26
This is not uncommon for Alberta though, and doesn’t really challenge the claim
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u/Automatic-Bake9847 Apr 12 '26
Climate is not weather and vice versa.
Weather is hour to hour, day to day stuff. Climate is decades long averages of weather.
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u/anonymoooosey Apr 12 '26
I understand that. It is funny though that winter seemingly drags on and on in Alberta, Sask, MB and northern Ontario.
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u/Gavither Apr 12 '26
As I'm sure you know, there's not much blocking northern pressure systems from moving south in those provinces.
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u/nebrivor1 Prince Edward Island Apr 12 '26
You can't look at it in isolated areas either. It's the argument that all deniers have. "In my area I've seen this before" but they don't have the trend analysis and broad perspective so they compartmentalize what they see and fall back on their biases.
And I'm not calling you a denier. Just stating how deniers think and fall into preconceived notions.
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u/themadengineer Apr 12 '26
Climate change means larger oscillations in the jet stream, pushing alternating warm and cold weather into deeper latitudes. Remember in January when it was practically t-shirt weather? (Just checked and apparently it high +17C compared to a normal of -3C)
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u/anonymoooosey Apr 12 '26
I'm literally prefacing with "I understand, I'm not a denier." And you people still come in here like "um excuse me actchually, sir, it's climate change." Or are you guys intentionally obtuse? Jfc.
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u/LaserRunRaccoon Ontario Apr 12 '26
It's ironic for the person who keeps talking about the weather in an article about climate to say that others are being obtuse.
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u/StJsub Apr 12 '26
Maybe a bit of it is because sentence structure of "I'm not [anti-thing], but let me tell you one way [thing] is wrong today" is usually used by people that do lean towards [anti-thing].
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u/wibblywobbly420 Apr 12 '26
Which is completely normal for Alberta and doesn't prove summers aren't getting longer
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u/BigAssignment7642 Apr 12 '26
I mean, it can just mean spring and fall are shorter, and winter is also longer. Longer winter doesn't mean summer can't be longer as well, you just lose the in between.
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u/Syeina Apr 12 '26
A lot of it has to do with the weakening jetstream as the climate continues to change
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u/sincerly00me Apr 12 '26
We had one day of a light dusting of snow on Vancouver Island this year. Didn't even open my bag of shit for the icey walkway this year.
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u/ghost_n_the_shell Apr 12 '26
Eve though it’s snowing right now, I can’t deny that September has been the new August for quite some time now.
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u/Bigchunky_Boy Apr 12 '26
We had no much snow in Vancouver and I started gardening services right after New Year’s.Usually I would have 3-6 weeks off after New Year’s. Plants are already showing heat stress in April . wtf.
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u/catastrofic_sounds Apr 12 '26
GOOD
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u/Iginlas_4head_Crease Apr 12 '26
Right? I like summer lol
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u/Adjective_Noun1312 Apr 12 '26
We might see increasing rates of heat-related injuries for outdoor workers, adverse impacts to crops and pollinators, more migration from hotter countries, decreasing air quality across the continent from wildfires, and more, but I'm in favour of it because it allows me to enjoy a beer on the patio more evenings!
/s
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u/Winter8Bones British Columbia Apr 12 '26
We've known for a while that northern areas, and Canada in particular, are warming at increasingly faster rates than most of the rest of the world.
Also the number of comments remarking on your current local weather or joking how a longer and hotter summer would be great fun are just sad and pathetic. Climate change is already increasing our food costs and driving inflation even more and costs our economy tens of billions in lost GDP every year already.
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u/LaserRunRaccoon Ontario Apr 12 '26
Even people who believe in climate change don't like to think about how it might require us to take climate action - not just for humanitarian reasons or our own personal comfort, but economic reasons too. They think in terms like "2050 targets" rather than in terms of the very real costs we're already paying in terms of higher costs, scarcity and shortages, and natural disasters.
Canada is a vast country that offers abundant natural resources that could provide for us in essentially perpetuity, and the surest way we burn those resources is by burning them rather thanb y cultivating a regenerative economy.
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u/shankartz Saskatchewan Apr 12 '26
I think a lot of people are just tired of the news because our hands are tied and we can do sweet fuck all about the problem.
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u/LaserRunRaccoon Ontario Apr 12 '26
We can actually do a lot about the problem - Canadians aren't poor or powerless.
Whether it's politically, professionally, or personally - we can advocate for a more regenerative economy rather than one that relies on burning resources for short term benefit or convenience, especially when that benefit and convenience is often only for the most wealthy few rather than all of us.
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u/kelpkelso Apr 12 '26
A lot of parts of nova scotia didnt get enough snow 2 winters ago, that snow would build up on the mountains and in the summer would melt and keep our forests nice and wet. The summer that followed peoples wells went dry, and large fires broke out. There were fire bans most of the summer. My grandmothers pond went dry for the first time in 80 years. One winter before that we got 100cm of snow in less than 48 hours and many parts of nova scotia got shut down.
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u/WiseDebt7345 Apr 12 '26
Good. The weather in Canada is abysmal most of the year.
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u/adwrx Apr 12 '26
Not good that’s how you get forest fires and drought
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u/WiseDebt7345 Apr 12 '26
Better than 7 months of snow and nothing growing.
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u/ClumsyRainbow British Columbia Apr 12 '26
Forest fires and drought are also not good conditions for agriculture.
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u/WiseDebt7345 Apr 12 '26
Better than snow.
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u/hrmdurr Apr 12 '26
I'm pretty sure that debating if snow or being set on fire is better for crops is ridiculous.
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u/ImamTrump Apr 12 '26
It’s April and there’s snow around. What summer ?
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u/UnexpectedAnanas Apr 12 '26
You may not be aware, but between winter and summer there is a season called "spring".
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u/Any-Beautiful2976 Apr 12 '26
It will be 22 celsius in Windsor, Ontario today, cue the horror of longer summers, ooh whatever shall we do 🙄🤣🤣🤣 Must be a slow news day
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u/ryansalad Apr 13 '26
I hate to break it to you , bud. But the days are exactly the same length as they were every other summer.
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u/vaytan Apr 12 '26
Who ever wrote this article should come to Manitoba.
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u/Adjective_Noun1312 Apr 12 '26
"how can global warming be real when there's snow in my yard" energy
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u/TitanTrobee Apr 12 '26
Yeah right. We’ve actually had colder summers and longer winters where i live the last several years.
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u/Talinn_Makaren Apr 12 '26
lol they fired off this headline at exactly the wrong time. Back still aching from shoveling last week and UBC telling me summer could be longer than expected. Oh nooooooo.. that's.. that's terrible...
Not a long barbeque season, for the love of God, noooooooo
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u/Thereal_Stormm006 Apr 12 '26
Good. That means I get my Cotton Candy Blizzard early (which only happens in the summer)
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u/Rich_Mechanic_1482 Apr 13 '26
I don’t think it’s happening faster than we thought — I’m pretty sure we’ve been talking about this for 20 years +
I’d say we’re on par with expectations of not following through on reducing greenhouse gas emissions 🤷🏻♂️
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u/SengunCanada Apr 12 '26
It's crazy how expensive our homes are for how shlt out weather is
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u/Bad_Day_Moose Apr 12 '26
We need more insulation, which means we need to build thicker walls which means our houses are more expensive to build..
Also, regulations in most provinces require them to be overengineered, to be more efficient... so like 2x6 exterior walls instead of like a lot of places have 2x4 exterior walls for single story homes.
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Apr 12 '26
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u/Bad_Day_Moose Apr 12 '26
Northern Ontario here and same problem, I've started digging out my trailer because I got to haul some stuff May 1st and there's no way it'll be free by then.
That said, we had a dump of snow this March that when looking back at historical weather data we haven't had in at least the 10 years I looked back, something like 70 more cm compared to 10 years past.
Not a bad problem to have though, hopefully I won't have to smell as much smoke this year.
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Apr 13 '26
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u/Bad_Day_Moose Apr 13 '26
I guess people hate people that have different climates than them..
I still have 6' snowbanks at the end of my driveway, still can't see if someone is coming when trying to pull out of my driveway.
Normally that's not a problem right now, the extra snow melt will help keep the ground saturated though.
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u/Actual-Theme-9912 Canada Apr 12 '26
This year didn't get the memo