It has been a hot summer in southern Manitoba, but not hot enough for the record books.

David Phillips is a Senior Climatologist with Environment Canada. In describing this summer, he refers to it as a "Goldilocks kind of situation." Phillips says there have been extremes on either side of us. For example, Toronto has had more than 30 days this summer where the mercury has climbed above 30 degrees. On the flip side, Calgary has had only one such day. Then, there is the Altona area, which has seen between 13 and 15 days this summer above 30 degrees.

"A lot of people in Canada would give a lot of money to have the weather that you have had this summer," says Phillips. "Not too hot, not too cold, adequate precipitation."

But, Phillips says you do not have to look further than 1988 to find a summer that was hotter. The average temperature then was 20.3 degrees, which is nearly a full degree warmer than this summer. And, the number of days above 30 was a whopping 37.

"People were just absolutely sweating and it was relentless the heat," he says. "(It was) the granddaddy of hot summers..."

Phillips says these temperature values do not take into consideration the humidex. Rather, they represent the air temperature in the shade. Having said that, Phillips says the same system that is currently bringing heat to southern Manitoba is also responsible for the excruciating heat in California's Death Valley over the weekend. In fact, forecasters are now saying the 54.4 degrees Celsius (130 Fahrenheit) that was reached on Sunday in Death Valley, might be the highest temperature ever recorded on earth.

"That same weather system that's bringing them the hot weather is also bringing to western Canada some warm weather," says Phillips. "Now it's moving across to Manitoba and certainly for the next couple of days, you are going to share those kind of warm temperatures."

Meanwhile, Phillips says the above normal temperatures will probably last a little longer. In fact, he notes Environment Canada is calling for the next month to be warmer than normal.