Warm enough for you?

The IESO predicted that demand for electricity would grow faster than Ontario's ability to generate it, unless more capacity was added to the system.

Environment Canada says summer 2006 should be. Every three months, the agency's top weather forecasters get together to pore over data and make educated guesses on what they expect the coming season's weather will be.

They check things like air current trends, prevailing winds and the status of ocean currents. It's substantially more scientific than standing outside a groundhog burrow in February waiting for the definitive word on whether spring is just around the corner.

"Come Labour Day, we think when we crunch all the numbers, it will look like Canada during the June, July, August period will be warmer than normal," David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, told CBC News. "Not necessarily on your holidays or when you go to that wedding reception, it just means that the character, the personality of summer will be warmer than normal."

Phillips says it should be that way right across the country. He adds it's been that way for most of the past 25 years.

"If you stuck a thermometer into Canada, the last cold summer we had nationally was back in 1992. In the last 25 years, we've had only four cooler than normal summers."

Phillips's forecast came as much of Central Canada was hit by summer's first blast of hot and humid weather. Smog advisories were issued for most of south and central Ontario — from Windsor to east of Kingston and north to the outskirts of Algonquin Park.

A sign of global warming? Maybe, maybe not, Phillips says.

"One year, one storm does not make global warming. The fact we've seen so many years favouring warmer than normal seasons tells us that the baseline of climate has changed, has moved up. That [also] means smog and forest fires — there's a downside. It's not just great for drinking beer and sitting on patios."

At the same time, the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society had gathered in Toronto for its annual conference — Weather, Oceans and Climate: Exploring the Connections. Among the topics the hundreds of scientists and researchers would deal with were ways of predicting climate change.

It's an issue that has Canada's power producers concerned — especially in Ontario. In April 2006, the Independent Electricity System Operator — the organization that co-ordinates the province's electricity business — predicted that demand for electricity would grow faster than the province's ability to generate it, unless more capacity was added to the system. The provincial government has promised to shut down its coal-fired generators by 2009 — a move that could make it difficult for the province to meet its power needs. The province, the IESO suggests, could find itself short of power by about 1,500 megawatts a day.

The IESO estimated that Ontario's appetite for power would peak at just over 23,000 megawatts on May 29, 2006 — the first hot, humid day of the year. The agency also estimated that the province's hydro, nuclear, coal and gas-fired generators would be able to churn out all but about 200 of those megawatts. The rest — and a little extra to ensure stability — would have to be imported from Quebec, Manitoba or the United States.

Still, the IESO says Ontario is in better shape to deal with its power needs in 2006 than it was in 2005. IESO spokesman Terry Young says the province has firmed up several deals that will mean access to stable sources of power when local generators can't meet the demand.

"We are in better shape than we were last summer," Young told CBC News. "But a prolonged heat wave could still be a strain on the system."

The problem is most acute in Ontario. British Columbia, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador all have the capacity to produce more hydro-electricity — water-generated electricity, the cheapest — than they consume. About 85 per cent of the electricity produced in B.C. is generated this way. The province expects its power needs to increase by 1.7 per cent a year over the next 10 years. It's predicting it will be able to meet its needs through conservation and increased capacity.