The short version: pretty cold but not really cold; pretty snowy but not really snowy.
Temperatures
This chart shows the temperatures for the Thanksgiving weekends (Friday-Monday) going back to 1995.
Thanksgiving 2018 was on October 5-8, which as early as it can possibly be. Other early Thanksgivings here were 2001 and 2012. But even a late Thanksgiving can only be as late as October 11-14, and recently we had those in 1996, 2002 and 2013.
The warmest recent Thanksgiving was 2010 with the Friday, Saturday and Sunday all above 25°C. And the hottest single Thanksgiving weekend day here was the Saturday of 2015's Thanksgiving weekend, at 26°C.
The coldest recent Thanksgiving was 2009, with all 4 Highs below freezing. 2016 was also pretty cool, with all for Highs below 5°C.
How does 2018 compare?
The average High around Thanksgiving is 11.5°C, and on Friday and Saturday we were just below that at 10.2°C and 11.2°C respectively. Then Sunday was cool at 7.4°C. As I'm writing this it looks like Monday's High will be about -1.8°C, and that's very cold. Since 1995 the only other Thanksgiving with any Highs below freezing was 2009.
The average Low for Thanksgiving is 1°C, and this year all of the Lows were a few degrees cooler down around -2°C and -3°C. 2016, 2009, 2008, 2000, & 1997 all had Lows which dropped below -5°C.
So Thanksgiving 2018 was pretty cold but not really cold.
Rain & Snow
This chart shows the Rain and Snow recorded at the International Airport since 1995.
This year Sunday had 2.2cm of snow & 0.4mm of rain, and Monday had 2.0cm more of snow.
For some recent comparisons:
- 2017 had 0.2mm of rain on the Saturday, and 0.4cm of snow on the Sunday.
- 2016 was a big snow year, with snow on all 4 days for a total of 12.5cm.
- 2015 had a total of 1.4mm or rain on the Sunday and Monday.
Before that we need to go back to 2009 to find a Thanksgiving with some Precipitation, and it had 1cm of snow across 3 days.
The really notable Thanksgiving here was 1998, with 2.6mm of rain and 16.2cm of snow.
So Thanksgiving 2018 was pretty snowy but not really snowy.
Our Cold, Cold, Cold September Continues...
Last week we talked about the historically cold September of 2018, and while temperatures have moderated a bit since then, we've still been below average - in some cases (like Thanksgiving Monday) a lot below average.
Winter 2018-2019 Snow Totals So Far...
This chart shows our cumulative snow totals for the winter of 2018-2019, so far. And thanks to the historically snowy September 2018 we're well above any recent years, with a total of 43.2cm. The average doesn't hit 43.2cm until later December.
Lasting Snow
This chart shows the depth of snow-on-the-ground at the International Airport. 2018-2019 isn't included yet because so far in October there hasn't been much going on.
At Edmonton Weather Nerdery we don't make predictions. But typically we don't get lasting snow until the last week of October at the earliest.
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