Winter officially arrived in Montreal at 5:44 Wednesday morning, and Canada's top weather forecaster says the rest of it will be a lot more typical than last year's was.
David Phillips, the senior climatologist at Environment Canada, says the coming Montreal winter might be slightly milder than normal — but, he says, don't expect the relatively snowless, comfortable winter of a year ago, where there were just five days when the temperature dipped below -20.
"Clearly, we have to get over the point that it's not going to be like last year," Phillips says. "We know what brought last year...El Niño, super El Niño".
You may remember that the year before that was the so-called "polar vortex" winter, where the city recorded 26 days of temperatures that fell below -20.
"I think in many ways what we'll see is something between last winter and the winter before. What we think is that it'll be closer to normal, there'll be something for everybody."
He says people north and west of here will generally experience a colder winter, while those in southern Quebec and Ontario may experience a slightly milder winter — though nothing close to a record-breaker.