The leaves are turning orange, the temperatures appear to be dropping and increasing at the same time, and your friends are flooding your Instagram feed with photos of #sweaterweather — you guessed it, Monday is the first official day of fall.

In an interview with the Star, David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada, tells Torontonians that although it’s difficult to predict temperatures for this season, people can expect it to generally be warmer than last year.

“It’s a tough season to get it right,” he said Monday. “Summer wants to hold on and winter wants to get a foothold. . . . (It’s) almost as if this is kind of the opening act before winter.”

According to Phillips, the fall will be wetter than normal — but also warmer than normal.

“September already in the Toronto area has been milder than the normal,” he said. “Temperatures have been almost two degrees warmer than normal.”

Phillips added, “Last week was a gorgeous week. I think we had seven days of dry weather and warm weather and sunny weather. I mean, that was like a gift that nature gave it to us. You can’t normally expect that in the fall.”

In general, however, the fall season will be marked by unpredictability.

One thing the forecaster does guarantee is that “we’ll have a better fall than we had last year” and Toronto will have some nice days in October and November.

According to Phillips, people typically mark the first day of frost as the real first day of fall — which usually falls on Oct. 9. However, last year it fell on Oct. 18. “I certainly don’t think it will be this week,” he said.

“The point is, fall can come, you can get a day of fall and then summer comes back.”

Environment Canada is forecasting rain and showers off and on for most of this week.

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With files from Miriam Lafontaine

Ilya Bañares is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @ilyaoverseas