A touch of winter arrives before more mild rolls in

By Gillian Slade on January 19, 2019.

Crews plow Carry Drive on Friday morning after a night of snow fall.--NEWS PHOTO COLLIN GALLANT

gslade@medicinehatnews.com @MHNGillianSlade

A dumping of snow along with colder temperatures and it suddenly feels and looks like winter — for now.

“We had graders and plows out at 4 a.m. with sanding units as well,” said Jeremy Petryshyn, manager of operations with the city, on Friday.

The extended forecast indicates milder temperatures will return in the coming days, although snow is likely to come back.

A record high temperature for Jan. 18 was 8.6 C in 2017. The lowest record was minus 34.1 C in 2012. The most snowfall on the ground on that date was 30 cmin 2011.

Weather talk around town recently has been about the extreme cold temperatures experienced last year compared to this year.

Looking at historical data for the past five years seems to show a trend of cold weather early in January followed by a warmer spell in the middle of the month and then colder again toward the end of the month.

Here are the temperatures for Jan. 18 and 19 since 2014.

Jan. 18

2014 – High 6.9 C, low -3.3 C;

2015 – High 6.6 C, low -4.5 C;

2016 – High -7.4 C, low -17.7 C;

2017 – high 8.6 C, low 3.3 C;

2018 – high 6.9 C, low 2.7 C.

Jan. 19

2014 – High 6.7 C, low -2.0 C;

2015 – High 5.3 C, low -0.6 C;

2016 – High 2.7 C, low -10.9 C;

2017 – High 10.1 C, low 1.0 C;

2018 – High 3.9 C, low -2.4 C.

The Canadian Farmer’s Almanac has predicted February temperatures plunging to -45 C and that there will be coast-to-coast snow storms in the middle of March.

Environment Canada has questioned the validity of this prediction because El Nino is brewing in the Pacific and it is a warmer than normal situation. When it’s warmer than normal it generally means a milder than normal winter in Canada.

Albertans won’t have to wait long to see who is correct.