A Photo Essay of Toronto in February

The idea for this new series came from two places.

Terry Tyler’s year-long photo series on what her local park looks like in each month of the year.

And Marianne Arkins’ comment on a post I wrote last month in which she asked me to share more of my photography.

Once a month, I will share snapshots of one of the parks in Toronto so my readers can get a feel for what the climate is like then and what the foliage is (or isn’t) doing. I may share bonus photos of other parts of the city, too, once the weather warms up and I’m spending more time outdoors.

February used to be a colder and snowier month in Toronto than it is in this century. I didn’t grow up here, but the weather in my childhood home state of Ohio is similar enough for me to make the comparison between them.

Climate change has shifted those historical weather patterns. February now acts like March in this part of the world. By that I mean that it’s unpredictable and often stormy. One day you could have a blizzard and overnight lows of -20 C (-4 F) or colder. A day or two after that it could warm up to 10 C (50 F) and sunny.

Landscape photo of a park. Image on left is of a World War I statue. There are numerous trees in the background and a road in the foreground.

My visit happened on a warm day when it was about 7 C (44 F) outside. The sun was shining, but there was still some snow on the ground.

The orange fence you see is the background is part of a city project to revitalize this park. It’s a heavily used area and the ground had been pretty trampled before city workers started to cordon off areas to let them rest.  Close-up photo of snow sitting on the steps of a World War I monument.

A park monument covered in snow and ice.

Photo of trees in a park. There is a bench and walkway in the foreground and a large patch of snow covering the grass in the background.

All of the plants are dormant or dead at this time of the year. You can see a few straggling leaves from last autumn still holding on, but the trees’ branches are bare other than that.

Notice that you haven’t seen any people here yet. While I do my best to avoid taking photos of strangers, this isn’t a popular time of year for going to the park in general. I didn’t see anyone in the distance while I was there.

Close up shot of a pile of snow beside a sidewalk and the trunk of a tree.

There is generally some snow on the ground in February. It melts on warm days, but we’ll probably continue to get more snowfall and to see patches of old snow hanging on in shady spots until April. A running trail covered in slushy snow and half-melted ice.

The photo above is of a muddy running trail that is flooded with half-melted ice and snow. Normally, it would have a flat, solid dirt surface.

One of the reasons why people don’t visit our parks as often, or at all,  in February has to do with what the land is like now. The cycles of freezing and thawing creates less-than-ideal conditions in the park for many common activities like having a picnic, exercising, or otherwise straying from the sidewalk.

We get so much precipitation in Toronto that it’s hard for the ground to absorb all of it when it’s cold outside. This sort of flooding is normal and generally keeps happening until April when everything thaws out and the soil can absorb more water.

The park actually looked pretty good when I visited it. It can be much more flooded than this at the end of the winter. There have been times when the entire sidewalk was covered in ice if we’d recently had a big snowstorm that melted and then refroze overnight.

I will pick this series up again next month when we’ll see what March is like here.

4 Comments

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4 Responses to A Photo Essay of Toronto in February

  1. I like this new theme, Lydia. I hope you’ll post more photos of this park so we can see what it looks like in the summer.

    Ruth

    • Thank you, Ruth! Yes, I will post more photos of the park once the ground there is less muddy. February simply isn’t a great time of year to wander around certain parts of it, but that will change in a couple of months.

  2. This is such a great idea. I lived in Toronto for awhile, and I loved the city, but not the snow. Lord. I’m not built for cold climates!

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