As Edmonton faces its 11th consecutive day under an extreme cold warning from Environment Canada, the question people are asking is, ‘How much longer?”
“There is a glimmer of hope,” Dave Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, said Tuesday on CBC Radio’s Edmonton AM.
“This morning may be the last of your –30. You might even see next week a single-digit negative value for the high.”
Through Monday next week, Environment Canada predicts daily high temperatures ranging between –15 C and –18, with overnight lows dipping into the minus 20s.
Normals for the period are highs of –4 C and lows of –13.
Phillip wouldn’t go so far as to say the coldest of the winter weather is behind us. Sometimes, it can come back, he said.
You’d have to go all the way back to 1936 for a winter as cold as this one, Phillips said.
On the bright side, temperatures at the end of the month and heading into March should prove to be milder.
“From January to February maybe it warms up two degrees on average, but from February to March it warms up by at least five degrees, if not more.”
‘Patience is the key’
Nature is on our side, with the amount of daylight increasing and more sunshine, Phillips said.
“Patience is the key.”
The current deep freeze can be blamed on a cold trough of air coming from Siberia.
The view from the funicular in Edmonton last week when the wind chill made it feel like -35. (William Wang/CBC)
Clear skies contribute to the cold since any heat radiates up to space, Phillips said. Cloud cover helps trap warm air closer to the earth’s surface.
Edmonton has already received what’s considered a normal amount of snowfall for the year, he noted.
“It began early and it just carried on.”
This was supposed to be an El Niño winter, with milder than normal weather. El Niño is associated with warmer than normal waters in the Pacific ocean.
But the El Niño was weak and only stuck around through December and January, said Phillips.
“The cold air is the bully and it took over and it just grabbed hold of us and it won’t let go, certainly in the Prairies.”