NEWS PHOTO GILLIAN SLADE The last "mild" weather day before temperatures plunge to possibly as low as -33C, but Environment Canada says it will probably only last a week or so.
gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade
Environment Canada says the deep freeze is coming but shouldn’t last all winter.
After a relatively mild December and temperatures that have been about two degrees warmer than seasonal norm, get ready for overnight lows of -33C and day-time highs of a whopping -29C.
“It’s a real slap in the face,” said Dave Phillips, senior climatologist for Environment Canada. “This is the real thing now … so pretty cold days.”
Wednesday was the last day of “balmy,” above-freezing temperatures for a while, said Phillips. An arctic weather system is expected to plunge down.
“The polar vortex, which has been sitting over Siberia for a good number of weeks, is now coming this side … and it’s going to make a plunge right down through the heart of Alberta.”
Although Environment Canada only forecasts seven days in advance, Phillips says there are weather models that suggesting that by the end of next week it will be warming up again. It should still be cold but not extreme.
“The good news is this (cold snap), it’s not a long, long bout. It’s not like last February,” said Phillips.
If you have forgotten how bad February was in 2019, Phillips reminds us it was the coldest February in 82 years.
“It was the coldest of any month in 70 years,” said Phillips. “No month has been colder.”
January is typically the coldest month of the year and this month has been a tug of war between the polar air to the north and the Pacific air to the west, said Phillips. So far the Pacific air has won out and this blip is not going to last long.
The other bit of good news is there has been more sunshine every day, said Phillips – about one-and-a-half minutes extra sunshine each day, and by the end of the month it will be more than three minutes per day.
During this stretch of extreme cold temperatures will be what Phillips calls the “magic point” of the year.
“The dead of winter – the halfway point – where we can say statistically there is more winter behind us than ahead of us,” said Phillips.
