July was Ottawa's rainiest month on record, and the rain carried through the long weekend

July 2026 was the rainiest month Ottawa has recorded in more than 150 years of weather data, CBC News reports. CBC reports the month finished with 281.8 millimetres of rain at the Ottawa International Airport, past the previous monthly record of 250.2 millimetres set in 1899. Environment Canada's Ottawa weather records go back to 1873.

Those totals are measured at the airport, the station Environment Canada uses for the city's official record. The Bugle has no Barrhaven-specific rainfall figure to report, so read the airport numbers as the measure for Ottawa rather than a reading taken here.

The wet stretch did not stop with the calendar. Environment Canada's daily records for the airport show 1.0 millimetre on Saturday August 1, 36.1 millimetres on Sunday August 2 and 15.6 millimetres on Monday August 3, which is 52.7 millimetres across the Civic Holiday long weekend.

CBC also reports that the July 1 storms that wiped out Ottawa's Canada Day events dropped 118 millimetres at the airport in a single day, and that none of eastern Ontario's six conservation authorities issued a flood alert during the late-July storm.