It's shaping up to be a milder than usual winter across the region with the presence of the El Niño weather pattern.
The winter solstice happens at 10:27 p.m. eastern time on December 21, ushering in the new season.
Sarnia-Lambton's average temperature long-term for the month of January is -4.8 C, and it typically reaches about 0.2 C in February, and 1 C in March.
Environment Canada Warning Preparedness Meteorologist Steven Flisfeder said the precipitation forecast is less certain.
"Precipitation-wise, there's a lot less confidence in either above or below normal," said Flisfeder. "It's a very unclear signal. It's really going to be a wait and see approach, and monitor the weather day to day and week to week."
Flisfeder wasn't able to say how stormy the winter months will be.
"With that being said, looking at the next week's worth of forecasts, there's nothing in terms of snow for southern Ontario. There is a system coming through early next week in the Tuesday or Wednesday timeframe but it's mainly going to rain."
Flisfeder called the prospect of a white Christmas "around zero" locally, but that could be a different story as the New Year approaches.
He cautioned that the current forecast should be taken with a grain of salt.
"We are looking at some potential lake effect snow for Sarnia, especially closer to the lake," said Flisfeder. "We could be seeing some lake effect snow with the colder air behind next week's system. So, towards New Year's, we could see some snow on the ground and potentially difficult driving conditions."
A usual January in Sarnia will bring around 38.6 mm of precipitation to the region, while we get around 24.1 mm in February, and 26.2 mm in March.
El Niño causes the Pacific jet stream to move south and spread further east.
During winter, this leads to wetter conditions than usual in the southern U.S. and warmer and drier conditions in the north.
