Southern Manitoba just put the finishing touches on the warmest month of November ever recorded for this province. Back in September, Environment Canada issued its fall weather outlook, calling for the months of September, October and November to be warmer and wetter than normal. And Senior Climatologist David Phillips says they hit the nail on the head.

Phillips says, historically, the average temperature for November is -5 degrees. However, last month the average temperature was +3 degrees. Temperature data for Steinbach goes back 60 years and Phillips says the warmest November during that time was back in 2001 when the average temperature hit +1.4 degrees. For Winnipeg, even if you go back to 1900, you still can't find even one year where the average temperature in November reached +2 degrees.

"Every place in Manitoba, either came very close to breaking an all-time record for the warmest November or literally smashed and clobbered the previous record," says Phillips.

The difference between the average temperature in November and the average temperature in October this year was less than four degrees. And Phillips says historically, the difference in temperature between October and November is about ten degrees, which is the largest difference between any two consecutive months during the course of the year.

One of the results of the mild month of November is that there were fewer tornadoes south of the border. There was only one tornado last month in all of the United States, whereas a typical November will see 58. Phillips says a tornado is created by cold air from Canada under cutting warm American air. But the lack of cold air last month meant fewer tornadoes could develop.

With November now behind us, Environment Canada has released its winter weather outlook for the months of December, January and February. Phillips says contrary to what almost every other weather service is forecasting, Environment Canada is calling for a winter that is warmer than normal for southern Manitoba.

The normal high for early December is -6 degrees in this part of the province. Phillips says the start of December should be a little milder than that, until the middle part of next week when northerly air settles in, cooling things off. But he expects that will only last about seven to ten days.

"If there is a tougher part of winter it will be towards the end, maybe late January, February, March," says Phillips. "Where you will see the cold air staying around a little longer than what we've been used to."

Phillips says he expects the winter of 2016-17 will be colder than 2015-16 but warmer than 2013-14. He notes those were two very different winters. In a normal winter, southern Manitoba will have between 10 and 14 days where the temperature gets below -30 degrees. That happened only once last year, but 25 times in 2013-14.