Clear sky and sunshine in Nunavut after cold, foggy 2015

In Nunavut, 2015 was an especially cold year, marked with foggy weather and shrinking ice cover, but the New Year is coming in with clear skies and sunshine.

2016 is off to a great start as far as the weather is concerned.

"Lots of clear skies, sunshine and no weather to stop you from enjoying the new year," said Dave Phillips, Environment Canada's senior climatologist.

• Weather anomaly pushing North Pole temperatures above 0 C
• In Iqaluit, icebreaker paves way for season's supply ships
• Baffin Island gets showered with cold November rain

The forecast forNew Year's Day issupposed to be afew degrees colder than normal across the territory but it will be otherwise fine, said Phillips.

"No blizzard or blowing snow, or zero visibility, or face numbing wind chills, just a little cold,crisp and bright," added Phillips.

Bone-chilling 2015

The beautiful New Year's Day forecast might bepayback for a bleak, cold winter in 2015.January and Februarywere one of the coldest stretches inIqaluitin 22 years.

• Extreme cold weather brings -62 C wind chill toIqaluit

"I just shudder when I say this, 14 days when the windchill was below -50 C, including five days in a row in the middle of February," said Phillips.

On Jan.26 the windchill reached a bone chilling -68 C.

One of the coolest, wettest Julys on record

Nunavut's' weather made national news this summer with one of the coolest and wettest Julys on record.

• Iqaluit gets a month's worth of rain in 9 days

"It was cold, wet, dreary, foggy and ice-clogged," said Phillips."The ice didn't get away from Frobisher Bay until well into July."

At the beginning of summer,Phillips said 23 out of the first25 days were wet.

"You deal with some tough winters, but you expect your summers to be at least halfway decent and warm and comfortable and it was endless rain and fog," said Phillips.

That fog delayed flights out of Iqaluit, Cape Dorset and Pangnirtung, leaving a lot of people stranded.Many communities couldn't get fresh food and stores had depleted stocks.

4th lowest Arctic ice cover since late 70s

2015 marked the fourth lowest ice cover that scientists have seen in the Arctic since the late 70s when they started monitoring the area with satellite, said Phillips.

• Ice conditions hold up resupply of Iqaluit, east Hudson Bay

He said the shrinking ice cover was most noticeable in late August and early September when the Arctic ice typically reaches its minimum.

"Particularly the Northwest Passage and the northern sea route were open simultaneously something that was more rare in the past but is becoming more frequent," said Phillips.

Nunavut hoarding winter

So far, this winter has been very cold inNunavutcompared to the unseasonably warm winter in southern Canada, Phillips said.

"It makes me feel cold, we're not even into the dead of winter yet,"he said.

"Until this week we were wondering where winter was, you've been hoarding much of winter."

Despite the cold temperatures in parts of Nunavut, many of the hamlets have had a relatively mild winter so far. In Rankin Inlet temperatures in December have been threedegrees milder than normal,Phillips said.

Iqaluit also had a "southern kind ofChristmas."

"My gosh I couldn't believe how mild it was. On Christmas Eve and ChristmasDay we saw highs of warmer than -5 C," added Phillips.

The territory also saw unseasonableweather in late November.

"There was one timeI was shaking my head because Pangnirtung and Toronto recorded the same temperature in November.I mean come on, I don't think that's ever happened before," said Phillips.

Blizzards in the hamlets

"We got strong blizzards here," said Arthur Nicomedes in Qikiqtarjuaq.

He saidall the community's outdoor Christmas events were cancelled due to ablizzard that raged on for four days in the hamlet last week.

In Coral Harbour,visibility was so low on Christmas Evethat many church services were cancelled.

"We hadalmost zero visibility all day," said Leonie Pameolik, a Coral Harbour resident."The ChristmasEve services were closed."

Clyde River's John Ivey said his community saw a three day blizzard over the Christmas holiday.

"We had to shut down the water and sewer services and I don't think any aircraft flew in during those few days," hesaid.

Ivey said it didn't slow the community down for long though.

"We have a reputation of having some of the strongest and the toughest storms I guess on Baffin Island."