Absolute Zero (...cm of snow)

Yesterday, March 29th, the Edmonton International Airport hit 0cm of snow for the first time this winter. Last week we'd talked about when it first dropped to "trace" amounts, but now it's actually, officially at 0cm.

So lets take a quick look at that - with the caveat that we'll almost always get some snow in April, and we get snow in May about half of the time. But those spring snowfalls usually don't last long.

Snowdepth Compared to "Average"

Here we have the snowdepth throughout the winter, compared to the average. It was a low-snow winter, reaching a maximum depth of 18cm in early January, which was about average for a very short period of time. But then it dropped, and dropped again, and by the end of February we were almost at zero. March was quite snowy, which pushed things back up to 15cm on March 12th, but that quickly melted. By March 21st we'd hit "trace" amounts, and about a week later on the 29th we hit 0cm.

1995-2017

Here's a more direct comparison of the winter of 2016-2017 to recent winters. We can see the week that we spent at trace amounts, before finally dropping to 0cm.

The last three winters have all been relatively low, and have hit 0cm for the first time fairly early. In comparison 2010-2011, 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 were are quite snowy, which we looked at in more detail earlier in Snowdepth - Part 2 - The Big Melt.

The Melts

This is a comparison that shows how the snowdepth drops off each winter. 2016-2017 was fairly quick, falling from 15cm on March 13, to trace amounts on the 21st, to 0cm on the 29th.

I'd mentioned earlier that spring snow disappears quickly, and we can see that here with the little blips in April and May, which usually don't amount to much.

History

Finally, here is a look at the entire recorded history of snowdepth for the International Airport.

Reaching 0cm on March 29 makes 2016-2017 the 8th earliest winter, and just behind 2014-2015 which was in 7th with March 28. So the last 3 winters have all been very early, but our 5-Year average is still later than it was during the 1980s. From 1981-1995 almost all of the winters (with the exception of 1982 and 1989) had melts in late March or the first week of April.

What does 0cm look like?

March 22 - Trace Amounts

March 30 - Officially 0cm

I haven't been out to the airport recently, so I don't know how things look out there right now. It's not always going to be the best match for the city though.

So this is what things look like in town, with a comparison of the trace amounts of snow that we had on March 22, to what is now left on the 30th. While there is still some snow hanging around, it has receded a lot in the last week. The snow that's left is all in the shadows, and unfortunately that means the river valley trails will still be a soupy mess for awhile, yet.

2016-2017 Winter in Review - The Really Cold Days

In the next few weeks I'll be doing some recaps of this past winter - temperatures, snow, etc. Today we're going to get a headstart on that by looking at the number of really cold days that we had over the last few months.

One could quibble that "winter" isn't over actually yet. We will almost certainly get some more snow in April and maybe even in May (95% of the time, and 59% of the time respectively), but we have probably seen our last -20°C of the winter. The forecast for the rest of March is warm, and the last time that Edmonton dropped to -20°C during April was back in 1982. So while nothing is impossible, it's probably safe to say that our deepfreezes are behind us.

So we'll start with something that's close to my heart - winter commuting:

Active Commuting

This chart needs a bit of explanation, because it's not a count of all the cold days (we'll get to those in a bit), but is an attempt to estimate the number of really cold trips for anyone who walked, biked or bused through the winter. The idea behind it goes all the way back to the first real post that I wrote for this blog.

So this chart uses weekday temperatures only, and counts morning and afternoon trips. When I head to work on winter mornings it is typically very close to the daily low temperature, and heading home will be close to the high. The reason that weekends are excluded here is because on really cold weekends I can hide inside if I really want to, but for really cold weekdays I still have to go to work. I haven't removed the statutory holidays here though, so this could still be a bit on the high side.

With all of that then, we can see that 2016-2017 was pretty typical. Over these 5 months, there wold have been 5 trips below -25°C and another 13 below -20°C. That puts it very close to 2006-2007, 2009-2010 and 2012-2013. It had a few more cold trips than 2014-2015, but it didn't have any trips below -30°C like 2011-2012, 2013-2014 and a few of the others.

The standouts winters here are 2015-2016 as the warmest and 2010-2011 as the coldest. The very mild winter of 2015-2016 had only 2 weekdays that dropped below -20°C. And 2010-2011 would have had 46 commutes below -20°C, or about one-quarter of the entire winter.

Now lets add weekends back into the mix, and take a look at the total number of cold days:

Cold Days

Here we have the total number of days each winter where the temperatures dropped below -20°C.

I've mentioned my dog before, and that -20°C is the point where she needs to put boots on for walks.
The winter of 2016-2017 had 25 days below -20°C, which to me represent at least 50~75 separate struggles to get the dog into her boots, which is quite frankly too many.

Again though, we see that 2016-2017 was pretty typical, if maybe a little bit on the high-side of things. Last winter 2015-2016 was very mild, but 2011-2012 wasn't actually too far off from it. And 2010-2011 was a harsh winter, although 2008-2009 had more really, really cold days below -25°C. And that all lines up fairly nicely with what we saw last week in Edmonton's Warmest & Coldest Winters.

Right now the last time that we had a -30°C was three winters ago, back in January 2015. There was a similar 3-year gap from January 2005 to January 2008, and Edmonton's longest stretch without a -30°C was actually 5 years, from January 1998 to January 2003.

History of Cold Days

Here's the same data, but with a longer-term outlook going all the way back to the first records from the 1880s. It shows the number of days each winter below -20°C, -25°C and -30°C, and the 5-year averages appear as a dotted, red line.

From the 5-year averages we can see that the number of cold days in Edmonton have been dropping - a big initial drop from the 1880s (when the measurements were maybe questionable?) into the 1890s, and then a fairly consistent drop since about the 1950s.

Right now we average about 25 days below -20°C each November-through-March, which includes about 5 days below -25°C, and maybe 1 below -30°C.

Earlier I'd mentioned that from 1998 to 2003 there was a 5-year gap with no days below -30°C, and you can see that here if you look closely. Just before that though, there was a short period from 1994-1997 when the number of really cold days spiked. In particular the winters of 1995-1996 and 1996-1997 had 13 and 10 days below -30°C respectively, which is basically double any other winter going back to the 1970s.

That's it for today. This weekend I'll be back with the regular March Review/April Preview, and then in April we'll continue on with the 2016-2017 Winter in Review.

Almost Zero

Just a quick post to mention that yesterday, March 21st the Edmonton International dropped to "Trace" amounts of snow on the ground:

Snowdepth Compared to "Average"

According to Environment Canada "Trace" amounts aren't actually zero. Based on previous years we might stay here for a few days, and the forecast is sort of calling for snow, so who knows?

Snowdepth on March 21st

Plenty of other years have had trace amounts of snow on March 21st: 1968, 1979, 1986, 1988 (actually 0cm), 1992, 1995, 2001 and 2016.

So it's not rare, but 2016 is the only other time that it's happened recently.

March 21st is just a single point in time though, and in 2015 we'd actually reached trace amounts earlier - from March 15-19 - but then got a bunch of snow on the 20th, and then that all disappeared within a week.

1995-2017


Finally, here's one more comparison of how snow depth fluctuates throughout the winter. Last year we were at "trace" amounts for about a week, before getting a bit more snow, and then finally melting down to zero.

I haven't been out to the airport, but in the city there's still quite a bit of snow hanging around in the golf courses and other areas. So I'll be watching carefully for when we officially hit 0cm.

For a closer look a snowdepth, all of these charts are fully explained in Snowdepth and Snowdepth - Part 2.

Edmonton's Warmest & Coldest Winters

Today is officially the first day of spring, although we'll probably still have snow for a few more weeks yet.

But with the winter of 2016-2017 nearing its end, was it a warm one, a cold one, or pretty typical? I remember lots of coldsnaps and warmspells, but I don't have a great sense of how this winter compared to others. So today we're going to try to find out.

Temperatures for Winter 2016-2017

"Spring" technically starts today, March 20th, and "Winter" technically started on December 21st. But because the Canadian prairies take a slightly more relaxed approach to the seasons, here is a reminder of our temperatures going back to November:

• November started very warm, with a few all-time records. And things stayed fairly warm through the end of the month.
• December started with a long coldsnap, and after that the temperature jumped around.
• January also started with a long coldsnap, followed by some very warm days and recent-records.
• February also started with a coldsnap and a few recent-coldest days. That was followed by some very warm days, including an all-time record.
• And March also started with a coldsnap, before warming up recently.

So we've had a lot of ups-and-downs, which isn't particularly usual. But how does this winter compare to others?

Warmest and Coldest Winters

This chart is a variation of one that I used last year in Edmonton's warmest years (or NOAA anomalies, NOAA problems), except this one is only looking at the months from November through March. If you're interested the details behind the chart it's probably easiest to go back to the original post.

But generally, this compares the temperatures for each winter to the 20th century average. Warm winters are in orange, and cold ones are in blue. Using this approach, Edmonton's warmest-ever winter was last year, and it was on-average 5°C warmer than the average for the 20th century.

2nd and 3rd place are a bit of a surprise, coming in as 1930-1931 and 1888-1889 respectively. But we have seen both of those years show up unexpectedly before - the winter of 1930-1931 had only a single day below -20°C; and 1889 was Edmonton's 8th-warmest year on record, even though it was more than a century ago.

2016-2017 is dashed-in on the right, because this chart is counting all the way to the end of March. Right now 2017 is sitting at about 2.5°C above the 20th century average, which is pretty much inline with the winter of 2014-2015 two years ago.

Lets take a closer look at the breakdown for each winter:

The Horserace

This chart is a variation of one that I used last year in How Warm is 2016? And for all of the details behind it, again it's probably easiest to go back to the original post.

The short version is that this tracks how warm or cold things were, on a day-to-day basis. Days that are warmer than the 20th century average for that date gain points, and colder days lose them. With this chart, if I show all 130+ winters it's an unreadable mess. So here we just have the recent winters going back to 2006-2007, and the colourful sections in the background show the historic ranges.

Looking at the redline for 2016-2017 we can see:

• very warm and above-average November
• colder-than-average early-December
• fairly-average flat section from December through January
• chinooks in late-January and mid-February
• colder-than-average early-March

And here when I talk about the "average" that isn't just recent years, but is looking at the entire 20th century from 1901-2000.

As of late-March then, the winter of 2016-2017 is roughly tied with 2009-2010 and 2014-2015, ranking as Edmonton's 25th~ish warmest recorded winter. In terms of recent years, that makes this a fairly warm winter, with the only significantly warmer ones being 2015-2016 in 1st place overall, and 2011-2012 in 6th place.

That also means that 6-of-the-last-10 winters were colder than this year, with 2010-2011 and 2013-2014 both coming in below the 20th century average.

5 Warmest Winters

Here's a look at the 5 warmest winters of all-time, with 2016-2017 included as a reference. Our very warm November had us in 1st place for a little bit, but that tapered out by mid-November.

The Top-5 are all really close to one another, although they took different paths to get there:

• 2015-2016 (in orange) followed a slow-and-steady path to the top spot.
• 1930-1931 (in green) was out to a huge lead at the end of February, but then a cold March dropped it down into 2nd.
• 1888-1889 (in dark red) started quite slow, but had huge gains in January and February to reach 3rd. 
• 1976-1977 (in turquoise) also had a slow start, before taking off in late-January to finish in 4th. 
• 1987-1988 (light blue) had a very warm start in November and December, before some drops in early January and early February.

One thing that we can see from this chart, is that the overall ranking depends on exactly which dates we choose. 1930-1931 was in first place right up until the final week of March. And so if we want to say that winter officially ends around March 20, then maybe 1930-1931 was truly Edmonton's warmest winter?

I'm not going to get too hung up on that though, because I think the definition of winter needs to be a bit more fluid in this part of the world. But it does bring up another question, which is when exactly does winter start?

October, November, or December?

This is the same chart  that we were looking at earlier which shows the last 10 winters, except here the starting point changes from October 1st, to November 1st (which we've already seen), to December 1st. Because this whole thing is cumulative, the final results depend on what day we choose to start from.

We've already looked at what happens when we start counting in November, and in that case 2016-2017 is about the 25th warmest winter. But we know that November was really warm, and that gives this winter a pretty big boost.

If we use December 1st as the beginning of our winter instead, then we're almost immediately into the negatives, because December was pretty cold. From there 2016-2017 doesn't hit the average again until the chinooks of late-January. And as of late-May it's roughly tied with 2007-2008, 2009-2010, and 2012-2013 for a ranking of about 40th-warmest winter.

If we use October 1st as the start of our winter, we are also immediately into the negatives, because last October was really cold. That gets offset by the warm November, and by late-May we're in roughly 40th spot again, and tied with 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 again.

So all of that is just a long way of saying that none of this is written in stone. Looking at the last 10 winters, depending on exactly how you count 2016-2017 would fall somewhere between typical and warmish.

I think November 1st makes the most sense as the unofficial start of our winter. With the switch from Daylight-Savings time it now makes a really distinct break from October. Even without the time change though, November is the point where snow starts to stick around. Winters with snow in early-November feel very different from the ones when we are snowfree until late-November or early-December. So I definitely think the heatwave of November 2016 is important to count here, because it was certainly a notable part of this winter.

And personally, I don't actually consider the winter to be over yet. The charts today are really just preparation for a full Winter 2016-2017 report card that I'll do in maybe mid-April. At that point we'll revisit this, but will also look at warm days, cold days, snowfall, and etc.

versus - The Edmonton International Airport: Part 2

Today we're going to take another look at the temperatures at the Edmonton International Airport.

One of the earliest posts on this blog asked How cold is the Edmonton International Airport? But since then I've learned a bit, and I have a few new charts to play with, so I wanted to revisit it.

High Temperatures

Here we have a comparison of the daily High temperatures during the year for Blatchford and the Edmonton International Airport.

The colourful stuff in the background is the typical distribution of temperatures at Blatchford: the white line is the recent average for each day; it's surrounded by a grey area which is the 25th-75th percentiles where temperatures will fall about half of the time; and the oranges and blues are the recent highest and lowest temperatures. And then the Edmonton International's average, highest and lowest are shown in the darker blue.

When we compare the High temperatures for the International to Blatchford, we see that they're very similar. The average is a close match, although for February and March the International is about 1°C lower. The highest and lowest recent temperatures are also very close.

So for the High temperatures there isn't much to say, but that changes when we look at the Lows.

Low Temperatures

With the Low temperatures the International is consistently below Blatchford. Throughout the year the average Low is about 4°C colder at the International. And for some of the recent coldest days, many are 7°C or even 10°C below Blatchford.

To take a closer look at this, we'll break things into summer and winter.

Summer Lows

Here we have the Low temperatures during the summer. We won't bother looking at the Highs, because they're a pretty close match. But for the Lows, we can see that the International Airport is basically shifted down from Blatchford, by about 3°C colder. The the warmest and coldest Lows are shifted down too.

But how much colder should an airport be, compared to the city?

Calgary & Winnipeg Summer Lows

Here I've added the average temperatures for two Environment Canada stations in Calgary, and two in Winnipeg. Calgary is complicated, because it has no centrally located station - it's International is about 9km from downtown, and Springbank is about 22km away. Winnipeg does have a central station downtown at the Forks, and the Winnipeg International is about 8km from there. And in Edmonton, Blatchford is about 4km from the downtown, and the International is about 26km away.

So neither Calgary nor Winnipeg are a perfect comparison for the situation in Edmonton, but at least here we get to see how remote stations compare to more central ones.

For Calgary, the gap between the two stations is about 3°C, which is pretty similar to the gap for the Edmonton stations. The lines are squiggly and there's a lot of variability from day-to-day, but this is a reasonably good approximation of how the stations differ.

For Winnipeg we can see that the lines are quite a bit closer to one another. Eye-balling off of the chart there's about 1.5°C between Winnipeg stations during the summer, compared to 3°C for Edmonton and Calgary.

Winter Lows

Leaving summer behind, here we see how the Lows of Blatchford and the International compare during the winter months.

Again, the International's average is consistently lower - this time by about 4°C. And while the highest-lows at the airport are only a little bit below downtown's, for the lowest-lows there are some giant gaps, with the International dropping below -40°C or even -45°C while Blatchford was 8°C or 10°C warmer.



This chart ranks every low at the Edmonton International that was below 0°C, which works out to about 4,600 days over the last 22 years. The orange cloud is the corresponding temperatures at Blatchford on those days, and they can obviously vary a lot. For some days Blatchford is as cold as the International, or maybe even a bit colder, but for others it's much warmer.

With the trendline we can see that the gap between the stations generally increases the colder things get. For mild winter days there's about a 3°C difference, by the time we get to -20°C it's about 4°C, and below that things really drop off.

We'll take a closer look at those really cold days later on. But first, here are Calgary and Winnipeg again:

Calgary & Winnipeg Winter Lows

During the summer we saw about a 3°C gap between the Calgary stations, but during the winter they are much closer, with about 1°C difference between them.

For Winnipeg in the summer we'd seen that the Forks was a little bit warmer than the airport, by about 1.5°C. In the winter that opens up, with about a 3°C gap between the stations.

So Winnipeg and Calgary flip from summer to winter. In the summer the two Winnipeg stations are close, and in the winter they're further apart. For Calgary it's the opposite. And through it all Edmonton is comparatively consistent, with the International about 3~4°C colder for the whole year.

The coldest-Lows are interesting though. Winnipeg's average winter temperature is several degrees colder than either of the Edmonton stations, but we see don't that for it's extremely cold days (the dotted green line). And in fact, the coldest-Lows for the Edmonton International are often below those for the Winnipeg International.

The Really Cold Days

Normally I try not to go overboard with animation, but this chart could certainly be accused of that. Without the animation though, this would need to be many, many separate images, and today is already running long.

So this cycles through a whole bunch of stuff: Edmonton International vs. Edmonton Blatchford; Edmonton International vs. Calgary Springbank; Calgary Springbank vs. Calgary International; Calgary Springbank vs. Winnipeg International; Winnipeg International vs. Winnipeg Forks; and then finally Winnipeg International vs. Edmonton International. Through it all the Edmonton temperatures are shaded in the background for comparison.

This is trying to compare the coldest days since 2000 at each city's outlying stations, to the corresponding temperatures centrally. And the 200-coldest days in Edmonton aren't necessarily the same days as Calgary or Winnipeg.

With all of that information there are a few fun things to point out:

• On these very coldest days, Blatchford is always warmer than the International. The typical gap is 8°C (that's the mean, the median, and the mode). There was 1 day with only a 1°C gap, and 17 with 5°C or less. But at the other end there are 63 with a difference of at least 8°C, and 12 with a gap of 10°C or more.


• The line for Springbank's 200-coldest is a pretty nice match for the Edmonton International, except that the whole thing is shifted up by about 5°C. That places it a bit below Blatchford.


• The Calgary International bounces all over, which is probably because it's the least-central of these central stations, and therefore the least-moderated? For these very cold days it's typically 3°C warmer than Springbank (and again, that's the mean, the median, and the mode), but there are some days that are colder, and some that are much, much warmer.


• On these cold days the Forks is on-average 4°C warmer than the Winnipeg International. But of these 200 days, there are 45 days where the temperatures were the same. So the Winnipeg stations have a lot more in common with each other than the Edmonton ones do.


• The lines for the Edmonton International and Winnipeg International cross over each other, and Edmonton's 100-or-so coldest days are actually colder than Winnipeg's.

That last point is probably the most interesting one - the Edmonton International gets more really cold days than Winnipeg does. Throwing that into one more chart, we get this:

Since 2000, the Winnipeg International was the station here with the most days below -30°C, at 208 (174+31+3). But the Edmonton International had the most days below -35°C, and for days below -40°C it almost triples the Winnipeg International's numbers.

Since 2000, the coldest day at the Winnipeg International was -41.7°C, on February 5, 2007. And sure, that's cold. But in that same time-frame the Edmonton International had 9 days which were colder than that, including -46.1°C on December 13th, 2009. And that was actually the most recent time that the International has dropped below -40°C, with December 12, 13, and 14th dropping to -44.7°C, -46.1°C and -41.7°C respectively.

This winter, the coldest day was December 17 at -32.8°C (-27.3°C at Blatchford) which put it in 100th-coldest spot. For the winter of 2015-2016 the coldest was -29.3°C (-20.3°C at Blatchford) in 188th place. The winter of 2014-2015 reached 43rd spot with -35.8°C (-30.2°C at Blatchford). And if we go back 3 years to 2013-2014, that winter had a bunch of cold days: two at -39°C for 14th and 15th place, -38.3°C for 22nd, and so on,

On the other end of things, of these stations Edmonton Blatchford recorded the fewest lows below -30°C, while Calgary International had the fewest below -35°C.

(It is again worth mentioning that Calgary is being a little unfairly represented here, since it doesn't have a central station. Blatchford is half the distance of the Calgary International, and it's surrounded by city, but they're both big, empty airports. The Forks is very central, and it's also in a reasonably dense area (ie. not an airport). So it's tough to say where exactly Calgary would end up if it had a central station. It will also be interesting to see if the redevelopment of Blatchford will cause its temperatures to move even further away from the Edmonton International.)

Winter of 2016-2017

Finally for today, we're going to take a quick look at the temperatures for just the last few months:

This chart shows the Highs and the Lows for the International and Blatchford this winter. It starts with lines for the temperatures, with the Highs temperatures as dashed lines and the Lows below as solid lines.

Then it cycles through to highlight the difference between Blatchford and the International. Days where Blatchford was warmer than the International are filled-in in red, and we can see that that was pretty consistent for the whole winter. The gaps are bigger for the Lows, with the International dropping to -32°C four times this winter, while Blatchford was between -22°C to -27°C. But for the High temperatures there were also a few days during our big mid-February chinook when Blatchford was at 10°C or 15°C, while the International was 5°C cooler.

The days when the International had a warmer High or Low than Blatchford are also highlighted separately in blue, but those are pretty rare. Out of these 151 days, there were 2 days where the International's Low was about 2°C warmer than Blatchford's, and 3 where the High was 1°C warmer. There are a few other days where the International was warmer, but the difference was less than 1°C.

Summary

So that was a bit of a marathon, but now we have a definitive answer to "How cold is the International Airport" all in one spot:

• The High temperatures at Blatchford and the International are pretty close, but as we saw with the winter of 2016-2017, they're not a perfect match.


• The Lows at the International are on-average 3-4°C colder than Blatchford throughout the whole year, but for the very coldest days that gap increases to 8-10°C.


• The temperature difference between Edmonton and its airport is consistently more than for the outlying stations in Calgary and Winnipeg. And again, on the really cold days the difference in Edmonton is about twice as much as the other cities.


• And finally, we have vindication for Winnipeg! The Edmonton International is usually several degrees warmer than either of the Winnipeg stations throughout the winter, but its very coldest days are actually colder than Winnipeg's. So for about 6 days/winter that must make the Edmonton International one of the coldest major airports in North America (watch out, Anchorage) if not the world.

For me all of this just reinforces why temperatures from the International are not a great representation of what we actually see in the city. I said this the last time that we looked at the Edmonton International, and I'll say it again today: remember to plug your car in.

Lousy Smarch Weather - recap

After the chilly temperatures last week, it looks like this week should be pretty warm.

Last week in Lousy Smarch Weather I took a quick look at the impending coldsnap, and today we're going to see how it actually turned out.

Forecast High Temperatures versus Reality

Here we have the actual, daily high Temperatures from last week, compared to what Environment Canada and The Weather Network were predicting as of last Sunday.

And so we were just a little bit warmer than Environment Canada's forecast, and thankfully we were about 5°C warmer than The Weather Network's predictions.

Sunday's High of -12°C made it the coldest March 12th going back to 1995. Earlier in the week we were nowhere near the recent-coldest, but were right inline with the 2nd-coldest.

Forecast Low Temperatures versus Reality

For the Low temperatures, The Weather Network had been predicting some extremely cold days, and thankfully those didn't materialize. We were also generally a little bit warmer than Environment Canada's forecast as well.

A lot of people - including myself - did not like the weather last week, but as cold as it felt it was still 10°C or 15°C warmer than the dark blues, which show the coldest March days going back to 1996.

Other Cold Marches

As a comparison, here are the High temperatures for some of the other cold Marches from just the past few years.

• 2009 got much colder at this point, but it didn't last as long. 
• 2011 was about as cold at this point, but with some warmer days to break things up.
• 2013 got about this cold, but it was actually a week later.
• 2014 started and ended the month well below average, and well below freezing.

And here are the Lows:

And the Lows are a similar story:

• 2009 was much, much colder at this point.
• 2011 was pretty similar.
• 2013 got about this cold, but it was a week later.
• 2014 started and ended the month below average.

Even though cold Marches happen about every-other-year, I remember one specific March being particularly cold and crummy for bike commuting. Although, looking at this list I'm not actually sure which year that would have been? I'm going to guess that it was 2014 - extremely cold to begin with, and then the last two weeks probably got to me. There are still almost 3 weeks of March 2017 left, and hopefully we don't see a repeat of that.

Lousy Smarch Weather

The writers of The Simpsons probably didn't have Alberta in mind when they joked about lousy Smarch weather. But sometimes March marks the end of our winter, while other times - like this year - it's not feeling very spring-like.

Here is the 5-day forecast from Environment Canada, and the 14-day forecast from the Weather Network:

High Temperature Forecasts

Environment Canada has our High temperature dropping down to -17°C and -18°C for a few days, and the Weather Network is predicting two cold weeks including a few Highs at -19°C and -20°C. That would put us 15~20°C below average, and colder than anything that we've seen since the beginning of February.

The experts are expecting something similar for the Lows:

Low Temperature Forecasts

Environment Canada's forecast has Wednesday down at -25°C, and the Weather Network is even more pessimistic, with a few nights down at -29°C. And again, that means this week could be colder than anything we've seen in a month.

Looking at both the Highs and the Lows, if the forecasts end up being correct then we're right at the bottom of our typical temperature range, and might break one or two recent records.

That ties into something we'd talked about late last year in 'Tis the season of -20°C. In the past two decades cold days have been more common in early-March than in late-February:

The Family Day weekend really lures us into a false sense of spring, but as I mentioned last week in the February Review / March Preview, 9-of-the-last-19 Marches have had at least one low below -20°C, and 17 have had lows below -15°C.

So cold days in March aren't exactly unusual:

20 Years of Temperatures

Here we have March temperatures going back to 1996. The coldsnaps with Lows below about -18°C are highlighted in red, along with the corresponding High temperatures during the day.

So yes, March coldsnaps are pretty common. Sometimes they last a few days, but other times they can last for weeks. 2002 is probably the most notable, with pretty consistently cold temperatures from the start of the month to about the 21st.

March 2009, 2011, 2013 & 2014

Here we're taking a closer look at a few recent Marches that were cold: 2009, 2011, 2013 & 2014:

• 2009 was mostly average, except for a few very cold days around -30°C right around this part of the month.
• 2011 looks like a pretty good match for our forecast this year - cold weeks at the beginning, but hitting average in the last half of the month. Although the Highs during that coldsnap were much warmer than what we're supposed to get this year.
• 2013 started very warm, but had a cool 2nd and 3rd week
• 2014 stared cold and ended cold, but was very warm in the middle

These are the coldest Marches out of the past few years, and their coldsnaps only lasted a week or two. And by the time we hit April we usually (usually) get almost a whole month of Highs above freezing. So hopefully Smarch 2017 will be short, and we'll be back on the path to spring again soon.