text: There’s no shortage of experts in the world today. The year of 2020 has definitely produced its fair share. An expert is defined as “a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area”. One of the professionals that I look to every year for this article is David Phillips, a senior climatologist at Environment Canada. He began studying climatology over 30 years ago—a qualified and trusted expert in my book. David reported that Environment Canada’s forecast for this fall is calling for both warmer-than-normal and drier-than-normal conditions. In an interview, he noted, “What we’re seeing is maybe more warm days than cold days, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be frost or snow on the pumpkins.” One of the potentially alarming trends, according to Phillips, is that we’ve seen a significant amount of days over 30°C this past summer. Ottawa had 18 days in July that were above 30°C—a few of them were 35°C or 36°C. Toronto also had 35 days this summer where the temperature reached above 30°C—this is more than double the normal average. It has been “without a doubt” an interesting summer and this warm weather was well accepted as many of us enjoyed more time than ever on and in Ontario's lakes and rivers.