OTTAWA A warm, dry winter set up conditions to turn a warm spell into a March heat wave like nothing Ottawa has ever seen. <\/p>\n
The heat came from the south of us, but weve had south winds before in March, and the temperature has never risen past 17 C. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday it reached 25.1, continuing the weeks pattern of smashing records by eight or nine degrees each day. The old record was 14.6 C, in 1995. <\/p>\n
Even David Phillips, who has published 24 weather trivia calendars with 365 daily weather anecdotes each, has seen nothing like this. <\/p>\n
Summer has arrived here, not spring, he said. <\/p>\n
He has a point. Ottawas average high temperature for June is 23.6 C. Yes, June. <\/p>\n
The first ingredient in our heat wave: The wind. For day after day after day, its been southerly air, he said. <\/p>\n
Normally we get north winds coming in to jostle the southern airstream. Not this year: By his count, Tuesday was the thirteenth straight day of air from down south. <\/p>\n
Its just standing its ground, kind of a monotonous situation. <\/p>\n
This kind of heat cannot be produced in Canada at this time. It has to come from the United States. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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\nAnatomy of a heat wave<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"