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Has the climate in Ottawa South changed?

Ottawa South has warmed about 3.3°F between 1971 and 2020.

About 0.7°F per decade, measured from Ottawa South's official daily weather records, 1971–2020. Individual years still bounce around — some recent ones came in cool — but the long-term line has clearly risen.

Is that a lot? Ottawa South's warming is broadly in line with other cities in Canada — neither unusually fast nor unusually slow.

What has actually changed

Each card compares the 1970s (the first ten years of the record) with recent years (the last ten) — the same span the headline and the chart use.

Average temperature
+2.3°F
1970s
42.9°F
Recent
45.2°F
A steady upward drift

Ottawa South's temperature, year by year

Average temperature for each year from 1971 to 2020.

39°41°43°45°47°49°1971: 42.1°F1972: 40.8°F1973: 44.7°F1974: 42.2°F1975: 44.1°F1976: 41.2°F1977: 43.5°F1978: 41.9°F1979: 43.7°F1980: 41.8°F1981: 43.9°F1982: 42.5°F1983: 44.0°F1984: 43.4°F1985: 42.7°F1986: 43.4°F1987: 44.7°F1988: 43.8°F1989: 41.9°F1990: 45.2°F1991: 45.3°F1992: 41.7°F1993: 42.5°F1994: 42.6°F1995: 43.9°F1996: 43.3°F1997: 42.5°F1998: 47.6°F1999: 46.5°F2000: 43.7°F2001: 46.4°F2002: 45.3°F2003: 43.5°F2004: 43.4°F2005: 45.3°F2006: 46.6°F2007: 44.4°F2008: 43.7°F2009: 43.6°F2010: 47.2°F2011: 46.3°F2012: 47.2°F2013: 44.0°F2014: 43.4°F2015: 44.6°F2016: 45.7°F2017: 45.5°F2018: 45.2°F2019: 42.8°F2020: 47.5°Flong-term trend197119801990200020102020
a warmer-than-average year a cooler-than-average year

Each bar is one year. Most recent years sit above the older ones. Some recent years still came in cool — warming is a slope, not a straight climb.

When in the year the change shows up

How much warmer each month is now than in the 1970s. Useful if you garden or care about a particular season — otherwise the headline above already has the answer.

0.0°+0.5°+1.0°+1.5°+2.0°+2.5°+3.0°January: +1.9°F+1.9JFebruary: +1.0°F+1.0FMarch: +0.6°F+0.6MApril: +0.6°F+0.6AMay: +0.7°F+0.7MJune: +1.0°F+1.0JJuly: +0.8°F+0.8JAugust: +1.1°F+1.1ASeptember: +2.2°F+2.2SOctober: +1.4°F+1.4ONovember: +1.2°F+1.2NDecember: +2.9°F+2.9D

December has warmed the most — about 2.9°F. The warming runs across the whole year, not just one season.

Methodology & sources

Temperature — 1991–2020 normals computed from 30 years of daily observations at Ottawa Cda, a weather station, about 3 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →