The senior climatologist with Environment Canada doesn’t believe the top weather story of the year is any big surprise – it’s the record wildfires across the country, forcing more than 230,000 Canadians to evacuate. David Phillips says almost 185,000 square kilometres of woodland burned, which is about one-and-a-half times the size of the Maritime Provinces. He adds that all of the fires in the United States in the last five years still wouldn’t fill that area of burned forest. He says, “The fires came early and stayed late.” By the middle of September, 297 evacuation orders had been issued nationally. No civilians died from wildfires, but tragically, at least four firefighters died while on duty in Canada.

The number two story is related to the top story. It was all of the smoke that cloaked our skies and the poor air quality from that smoke. Phillips says, “The number of hours of smoke is just mind boggling. You have over 1,000 hours in northern Saskatchewan, northern British Columbia.” There were about 200 hours of smoke in Kamloops, Edmonton, Regina and Saskatoon That smoke also made its way into the news internationally as it reached the U.S., Greenland, Iceland and other parts of Europe.

The top 10 weather stories of 2023 are:

1. The year for record wildfires
2. Canada cloaked in smoke
3. Hottest summer – On Earth and in Canada
4. Deadly deluge in Nova Scotia
5. Canada dry in the West and wet in the East
6. Hurricane Lee – No Fiona but more than a windy day
7. April glaze storm in Montréal – Ottawa: more beast than beauty
8. Cold spells in a warm year
9. Flooded out: Quebec’s record wet July
10. Canada Day tornado in Alberta

Click here for Environment Canada’s full report.