Cold Montreal Temperatures Broke Records In January — Here's The Outlook For February

The weather in January has been, well, a lot. Despite less-than-average snowfall, Montreal hit record-breaking low, low temperatures, with added wind-chill to boot. This was caused by the jet stream, which brought cold air to most of Eastern Canada.

According to Environment Canada meteorologist André Cantin, we hit record-breaking lows, "not for the whole month — for some days during the month. It's not the coldest January [on record]. We can qualify this January of 2022 as very cold compared to normal but it's not something we've never seen." That said, it was the coldest January in many years: "We have to go back to 2004 for a January similar to the one that we had this year."

The mean temperature in Montreal this January was -13.5 C. For context, the mean temperature for January is usually -9.7 C. This added chilliness was caused by the jet stream path, affecting Ontario, Quebec and many of the maritime provinces. This jet stream came down from the north, headed into the United States, then swooped back up.

Luckily, February should be warmer, after one last gasp of cold this weekend. "Tomorrow [February 1] and Wednesday [February 2] the temperature will rise close to the freezing point," Cantin explained.

The weather will then dip back down through the weekend. "After that, we will remain close to normal temperatures. Most of the very cold temperatures are behind us. The mean temperature for February looks close to normal. We suffered a lot in January but it won't be that difficult in February."

As for precipitation, Montreal had 41 centimetres of snow, 8.5 centimetres less than average for January.