Record Watch - January 17, 18 & 19

We've just had a couple of pretty warm winter days, and today we're going to put them into context.

January 17

On Wednesday we hit a High of 6.7°C. That' was the 6th warmest January 17th recorded in Edmonton, down a bit from the 7.5°C we had last year in 2017. The record is 8.3°C set in 2009.

The Low of -5.2°C was well below the 0°C record for warmest-Low set in 1976.

January 18

Our High temperature this year on January 18 was 8.6°, which was a perfect match for last year which was also 8.6°C. So 2017 and 2018 both tied for 3rd place, behind 8.9°C in 1900 and 9.0°C in 2009.

The Low this year was -5.2°C, which is in about 10th warmest spot. In comparison, 2017's Low was -1.5°C. The record warmest-Low was 3.3°C in 1900 again, and the coldest was -43.9°C in 1886.

January 19

January 19th's High of 5.2°C put it in 13th place, well below the record of 10°C set in 1944.

The Low of -1.9°C was the 6th warmest, with 1891 holding the record at 2.2°C. The record Low for January 19th is -49.4°C set in 1886, which is the coldest temperature ever recorded in Edmonton. 3 days all share the honour of having records at -49.4°C: January 19 1886, January 21 1886, and February 3 1893.

Top 50 for January 15-21

And here we have the 50-warmest days recorded in Edmonton for the week of January 15-21st.

The lowest record for this week is 7.2°C for January 16, which was set way back in 1884. The highest is 10.7°C for January 20th set in 1981, followed closely by 10°C for January 19th set in 1944. The records for the other 4 days are all between 8.3°C and 9.1°C.

The grey shading breaks things out by decade, and so far the 2010's have 10 days in the Top-50 with entries in 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2018. The 1940s have 7 days, the 1890s have 6 days, and then the 2000s have 5. The cutoff for the Top-50 is 6.1°C, so our 5.2°C on the 19th this year doesn't make it in.