January Unicorns

Did you hear that it's supposed to be warm this week?

In January??

In Edmonton???

But that sort of thing never happens.

...


I've talked about this many times before, but warm January days in Edmonton are actually pretty common. One might even call them reliable, since they happen every year, to one degree or another:

Perhaps more surprising is the fact that warm January temperatures were also pretty reliable over a century ago:

(...although take a look at some of the cold days in that table: -39°C and -40°C as daytime highs. 5°C one day, and then -40°C a week later...)

Yesterday the temperature made it all the way to 7.1°C, which was a nice surprise:

That made it the 4th warmest January 15 every recorded, but below both 2014 and 2013 which are 1st and 2nd respectively (3rd was 7.2°C in 1965). And 2013 and 2014 also had the 1st and 2nd warmest low temperatures.

If we just look at this week in history, January 16-20th:

Here we have the 50 warmest recorded days for the week of January 16 through 20th (technically 57 warmest, because there's a tie for 50th).

Again we see that both 2013 and 2014 were pretty warm during this week in January, and look pretty similar to what's being forecast for this year. Based on those forecasts we might get a day or two into the top-50, but if we want to break a record the best bet would be today. The 7.2°C record for January 16th was set way back in 1884, and it's pretty low compared to the other days this week.

So enjoy the warm weather, but it's not a unicorn.