Winter’s worst (and it was bad) likely done

By Gillian Slade on January 18, 2018.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com  @MHNGillianSlade

The roughest part of winter is probably over for Medicine Hat, says Environment Canada.

Even though there will still be cold days ahead they are more likely to be in the “normal” range of temperatures rather than the extreme cold we have been contending with, said Dave Phillips, senior climatologist for Environment Canada.

“You’ve dealt with some of the toughest cold you’ve had in years,” said Phillips.

Monday was particularly cold, and if you wondered whether temperature gauges were playing up on Tuesday morning, you were not alone. There were parts of the city recording -21 C on Tuesday morning while at the same time at the airport it was -6 C.

At 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning it was -21 C at Medicine Hat Regional Airport with a wind speed of 6 km/h. At 5 a.m. the temperature rocketed up to -7 C and the wind strengthened to 24 km/h, said Phillips.

Cold air is heavy and dense, like molasses, filling nooks, crannies and lower areas, said Phillips. Warm air is lighter so it goes above.

“Any little depression … would house the cold air,” he explained.

At the airport, higher than the river valley, there was warmer air but it would take stronger wind to dislodge the cold air at lower elevations. By mid morning the cold air had mixed with the warmer air making temperatures more consistent across the city.

If you have been feeling that this winter has been unusually cold you are right.

“It’s really been tough there,” said Phillips. “When it has been cold, it’s been fricken cold.”

The weather we had between Dec. 24 and Jan. 1 is arguably one of the most miserable, he said.

“The warmest of those days was -25 C and the coldest was New Year’s Eve at -37.6 C. New Year’s Day was -36.2 C,” said Phillips.

In the past three months we’ve had 17 days colder than -20 C, and in a typical winter there would be 12 in this time frame. In an entire winter, the city would normally get 22 days this cold.

It gets even more interesting if you look at days colder than -30 C. We’ve had seven so far this winter, while typically there would be two or three, and normally we would get four in an entire winter, said Phillips.

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