When is the first snowfall in Toronto for the season? It's a question that naturally bubbles up as the air begins to get crisper and the leaves start to change colours.

While the weather seems to be unpredictable at the best of times — especially in the wake of a particularly chaotic winter during the 2023-2024 season — meteorologists across the province are hard at work predicting when Toronto and its surrounding area will get its first signs of the white, fluffy stuff.

According to Ontario's October to December forecast from Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Toronto can expect higher-than-normal temperatures throughout the coming months, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we'll go without snow.

Both ECCC and the Old Farmer's Almanac are predicting that this winter will be a particularly wet one, with precipitation coming in the form of rain, snow and all those particularly miserable iterations between.

According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, snowfall will be below average in eastern Ontario this winter, but our snowiest periods will come in early November, early and late December, most of January and February and in early March.

In that case, assuming temperatures drop enough, Toronto residents could be building snowmen in as little as a month.

That might just happen, says the Almanac, with their forecast including the first snowfall of the season in Toronto during the week of Nov. 1 to 9.

No need to break out your shovels and salt quite yet, though, because ECCC is predicting that Toronto will be seeing a below-average snow cover for the period of October to December.

Still, it couldn't hurt to start thinking about booking an appointment to have your snow tires put on.

It might seem wholly unbelievable to those of us still reveling in regularly above-20 temperatures here in Toronto, areas of Ontario have already seen snow this season.

On Sept. 7, there were reports of snowfall in North Bay and Huntsville, weeks before the official end of summer. I can't say I'm in any rush to catch up with them, and Mother Nature doesn't appear to be, either.