Environment Canada says last month is in the record books as the warmest February ever in Sarnia.
Meteorologist Geoff Coulson says the long-term average temperature for the month was surpassed in 2017 by a considerable margin.
"We had an average temperature for the month of February at the airport of 1.4 C," says Coulson. "The long term average temperature for February is -3.7 C, so over 4 degrees in fact nearly 5 degrees warmer than normal for the Sarnia area."
Coulson says the previous record for February was in 1998 at 0.7 C. He says records for Sarnia date back to the mid 1920's.
Four new record highs were set over seven days in Sarnia from February 18 to February 24. On February 18, the temperature at Chris Hadfield Airport rose to nearly 19 C, smashing the previous record set in 1949.
Coulson says an unseasonably mild airflow from the U.S. Southwest and Deep South dominated the weather across southwestern Ontario.
"We do see these flow patterns from time to time in the winter, but what was noteworthy, was this one locked in for an extensive period of time," he says. "We broke single day temperature records in the second half of the month and saw the overall average temperature record being broken as well."
In sharp contrast to February 2017, just two years ago in 2015, we endured the coldest February ever with the average temperature 8 degrees below normal at -12 C.
Coulson says the outlook for the first half of March calls for above normal temperatures across much of the province, possibly with more precipitation than usual.