Finally, a day above freezing.

After 37 days in-a-row Blatchford has finally recorded a High temperature above 0°C.

High Temperatures

The great deepfreeze of 2019 started on February 1st, and around the middle of February things moderated a bit...while still ending up as Edmonton's 5th coldest February since 1880.

February 22nd had a High of 0.0°C, but it took until March 10th for the temperatures to finally reach above freezing again with a High of 1°C. And March 10th's High isn't actually particularly warm - it's right on the average (after a month-and-a-bit of mostly well below average).


Longest Meltless Streaks

37 days without a High above freezing makes this Edmonton 17th longest streak. It's also very late in the year for such a long run.

The longest streak was a whopping 83 days from November 11th, 1955 through February 1st, 1956. 2nd place was 72 days from December 4th, 1949 through February 13th, 1950.

In "recent" years:

• December 30st, 1983 ended a 41 day streak.
• January 31st, 1993 ended a 38 day streak.
• January 3rd, 2010 ended a 38 day streak.
• and 2009 had a 29 days streak, and 2005 had a 28 day streak.

This is another version of the same data. It more accurately shows the length of each streak, but I think it's harder to read than the bubble chart.


Recent Winters

This chart shows how often we have a High above freezing during the winter, and how often we have gaps of a week or more without them.

Each winter from November through March we average about 68 Highs above freezing. November-March is about 150 days, so that means our Highs are above freezing about 45% of the time. We looked at this in more detail in one of our very first posts: Winter Patio Weather.

The number of warm days varies from winter-to-winter, with a warm winter like 2011-2012 at 95 days, while the cold winter of 2010-2011 was down at 50. This winter so far we are at 44 so far, and if every day for the rest of March has a High above freezing (which isn't impossible) then we would finish the winter just below average at 65 days.

In a typical winter we will have 3-5 gaps of a few weeks where we don't have any Highs above 0°C. Earlier this winter we had gone 10 days, 9 days, and 8 days without a warm day, before the arrival of our 37 day meltless stretch. 2010-2011's 38 day stretch is also shown here. And most of the other winters topped-out with one 15-20 day stretch, and then a few shorter stretches.