Category Archives: Uncategorized

After the summer like heat in November’ winter came on schedule and hit hard. Much of the province has already receive extreme cold alerts before the making of this forecast.

Overall the upcoming winter will be a cold and snowy one with long lasting cold snaps and a good chance of seeing temperatures dipping below -40C. The AO looks positive from Mid Dec through to ~Mid January contributing to what is likely to be the milder part of the winter

2nd half of December: Much colder than normal, dry.    Brutally cold to start, mild weather takes hold for the holidays but colder into 2017.

January 2017: Near to slight colder than normal, snowy.Near normal for the beginning, turning colder late, risk of at least one major blizzard.

February 2017: Much colder than normal, near to above normal snowfall. Very cold for much of the month.

March 2017: Near normal to colder than normal, much above normal snowfall. Beginning very cold with frequent snowstorms, turning milder. There is quite a bit of uncertainty with March, some data is showing continued cold while other sources(current CFSv2) show an early spring.

After an October that was more than 2C colder than normal and with double the snowfall things are to dramatically switch for November. Starting around Oct 26th the long range models consistently plotted record smashing temperatures. As of this post(Nov) so far day 2 of that same record heat. A very strong pattern has set up and locked in the heat for Western Canada.

Temperatures have shot up towards the 20s, IN NOVEMBER. One location(Edmonton Airport) broke the all time high for the month twice on consecutive days, and there might even be a 3rd! Current models+bias(actual temperature-modelled temperature=Bias) shows even this record could fall again during the 2nd week of the month as temperatures might even reach the mid 20s in parts of central and southern Alberta.

This heat wave may last for a significant time. The CFS,ECMWF are jumping around between the 15th and inter December for the end of the 10+C warmer than normal weather. Generally the 20th is a good guess at this point for this forecast.

Overall November could 10C warmer than normal or higher and in the top 5 toastiest on record. Closer to normal conditions could be in store toward the final two weeks

Nov 1-10: Extremely warm and dry. Temperatures from the teens to the low 20s.

Nov 10-20:Possibly the peak of the warmth with temperatures nearing the mid 20s in select locations in central and southern Alberta.

Nov 20-30: Cooling off. Timing of the cool down will decide where in the top 5 Nov 2016 will sit. Temperatures could see a 50C drop from the highs were seeing for the beginning of the month

Earlier I decided not to do a forecast for October as at first the one in the Fall 2016 forecast seems good. But things may not pan out that way, so here is your October 2016 forecast)

Near of above normal temperature are staying at 3 and 4 weeks out in the models when we get closer the trends have changed. This is what I see as a good sign of stubborn weather pattern.

October 2016 could be the coldest in a decade, with temperatures close to 5-10 degrees below normal, above normal snow/rainfall.

Oct 8-15: Temperatures well below normal with several rounds of snow, it will look and feel more like December.

Oct 15-31: getting even colder with more snow. This could be the actual start of Winter 2016/17 as the snow may stick around until March or April 2017.

Some Recent examples of very early winter’s would be winter 2004/05 and winter 2006/07 with winter starting in Mid Oct and Late Oct respectively. Oct 2009 saw a period of extremely cold temperatures(-20C) and snow, but there 15C weather in November that managed to remove all of the snow.