Canadian Weather Community Forums

I have no idea what's going on in Canada's north, but about 200 kilometers south of the Arctic circle in Inuvik it got up to 28*C yesterday, and the forecast is for temps to continue to come close to 30 for the remainder of the week.

That's going to melt permafrost pretty fast

I'm not exact on the weather patterns up there, I know Inuvik frequently gets warmer than many points further south like Yellowknife. Inuvik's average daily high for June 24 is 20*C, so that in itself is quite warm. But to have the country's hotspot up there? Anyone care to explain how that happens?
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It's a perpetual hotspot, the northern end of the NWT. Only thing I can think of is that its a result of the Mackenzie River Valley. But I didn't think there was a huge amount of relief up there.

Yep, temps can get pretty warm up there with 24 hours of sun and a wind off a very large chunk of land ie continental airmass.

It's amazing how they are farther away from the sun than we are, yet they are sometimes getting warmer temperatures than we are here in the Maritimes! Although we are not fairing too bad here today.

And I should add that they are under nice upper-level ridge which helped keep the skies clear and helped keep the temps warm.

I saw about this on The Weather Network. They got up to 29.9 yesterday. WOW!

The reason for this? This is because they are, geographically speaking, situated in the Mackenzie River Valley, which is just to the east of a mountain range. When the winds blow from that direction towards them, a summertime chinook-type event can occur.

Inuvik is very warm in the summer - about the same as Yellowknife. It's because of the mild winds off the Pacific Ocean (the same reason why Penticton is warmer than Windsor even though it's north of the 49th).

Strangely enough, Moosonee (Ontario) has about the same climate as Inuvik, even though it's 17 degrees further south!