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Winter reaches record low temps

Frustrations over a cold and snowy winter are mounting as spring fails to bring much hope.
Jasbir Ubhi shovels the patio of Chin Up Cafe in Turner Valley Tuesday morning after Monday’s snowfall. This past winter hit record temperatures and snowfall.
Jasbir Ubhi shovels the patio of Chin Up Cafe in Turner Valley Tuesday morning after Monday’s snowfall. This past winter hit record temperatures and snowfall.

Frustrations over a cold and snowy winter are mounting as spring fails to bring much hope.

According to Environment Canada statistics, this winter has been one of the coldest in a decade, with seven record-setting days and two days of record snowfalls since 1990.

“In general, the whole pattern for the winter here was the way the storm tracks in the southwest corner of Alberta kept getting storm after storm,” said Dan Kulak, Environment Canada meteorologist in Edmonton. “A couple times a week we would have another weather pattern moving into the area.”

Statistics collected at the Environment Canada data centre in Black Diamond, which dates back to 1990, show record daytime highs and lows were set three days this December, one day in January and four days in February.

Even after the first day of spring, the Black Diamond location set a record low at -18C on March 31, beating the previous record of -13.5C in 2014.

Black Diamond resident Wayne Hill is frustrated with the cold and ready for a warm spring to melt the snow and make road conditions more pleasant.

“It hasn’t been fun, between the bitter cold and all the snow,” he said. “Winter took too long to get here and when it did, it came with a vengeance and it hasn’t really eased up yet.”

Hill, who works in construction, has to commute to the city for work and recalls several days where he called in accidents to Calgary radio stations.

“There were cars overturned in ditches,” he said. “It was treacherous all season long.”

While Hill said he’s always prepared for all types of weather, he feels others are not.

“I sometimes wonder if people haven’t experienced winter here before or they’re underestimating the conditions or overestimating their vehicles,” he said. “There were days I should have stayed home because of the conditions, but I haven’t missed any work. I’m not a rookie at this.”

By mid-April, Hill said he had hoped to see some signs of spring. Two years ago, he recalls looking out at green grass in his yard.

“My backyard is still full of snow,” he said. “It’s been a horrible winter. I’m tired of working in the bitter cold. It’s too far into 2018 to be like this. It should be gone now, that’s why it’s frustrating.”

The overall month of December saw an average high of -1.9 degrees and average low of -16 degrees, which was near normal temperatures for the month.

That changed over the following three months, according to Environment Canada statistics that date back to 2009. January’s average high of -1.4 degrees and average low of -14.5 was surpassed only in 2011 with an average high of -5.2 and low of -16.5.

Similarly in February, the average high of -6.4 degrees and average low of -21.3 degrees was exceeded only in 2014 with an average high of -6.6 degrees. The average low was the same.

March’s average high of 0.6 degrees and low of -13.2 degree was beaten twice since 2009, with a -1.5 degree high and -12.1 degree low in 2011 and -2.5 degree high and -12.7 average low in 2014.

“We didn’t have a lot of warming trends,” explained Kulak. “The winter was a general absence of extended warm spells across Alberta.”

Snowfall statistics, taken at the weather station in Okotoks, showed record snowfalls, going back to 1990, set on Jan. 1 with 33 cm and Feb. 4 with 25 cm.

Total snowfall throughout the winter was 65 cm in December, 78 cm in January, 36 cm in February and 55.6 cm in March.

Kulak blames the cold and wet weather on La Nina - a build-up of cooler-than-normal water in the western tropical Pacific Ocean that brings unusually strong, east winds and ocean currents to the coast.

This caused the jet stream, a narrow band of air currents that encircle the globe, to remain south of Alberta for much of the winter, keeping the warmer air south of Canada, he said.

“The storm tracker follows the jet stream so there was snowstorm after snowstorm every few days for what seemed like much of the winter, making it cooler and wetter than normal,” he said.

Kulak said weather predictions show much of the same this spring.

“The forecast shows greater than 70 per cent cooler-than-normal conditions for most of Alberta into May and suggests April, May and June will probably average out to be cooler than normal,” he said.

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