Depending on how exactly you count, our average temperatures bottom-out around New Year's. They hang out at the bottom of that valley for about a month until they actually start climbing again at the end of January, but we're midway through that. We looked at that more in Are we there (the middle of winter) yet?
We have also just passed the point of peak -20°C days. We will still inevitably have more of those before the end of winter, but the likelihood of really cold days has started to drop. We looked at that in more detail in 'Tis the season of -20°C.
And so what has Winter 2018-2019 brought us so far?
High Temperatures
Here we have the High temperatures for November, December, and the first half of January.
November started quite cold (September and October were also very cold), but since then things have generally been fairly warm. And we set a warmest-since-1880 High on January 2nd.
A dotted-red line appears in the chart for last winter 2017-2018. It had several weeks of deepfreeze at the end of December and beginning of January which we haven't come close to this winter. And then last February was quite cold too.
Low Temperatures
The Lows for the winter of 2018-2019 are similar to the Highs, with most at or above average, and no major coldsnaps (unlike last winter).
Coldsnaps
So far we have only had 2 Lows of -20°C this winter.
At this point last winter we had had 14, and the winter before that it was 18.
In recent years 2015-2016 & 2011-2012 were both also relatively coldsnap-free, with only 4 days by mid-January.
Warm Days
The flip side of coldsnaps is the "warm" days each winter, and here we have the Highs of 0°C or warmer.
So far we have had 33 warm days since November, which is about as much as 2015-2016 (34) and 2017-2018 (32). It's well above 2012-2013 which was down at 19, but it's well below 2011-2012 which was way up at 50.
The Horserace
When we add up all of the temperatures for the winter so far, this is how 2018-2019 compares to the last 10 years.
Right now 2018-2019 is in 2nd place, behind only 2011-2012 which ultimately finished as Edmonton's 6th warmest winter. We are currently ahead of 2015-2016 which ended as Edmonton's 1st warmest November-March.
Snowdepth
Finally, for snowdepth we're not quite at the halfway point. Snow usually starts to show up in early~mid November, it starts to drop in mid March, and it disappears by early~mid April. So right now we are about 2.5 months into our snow season, and there are still about 3 months to go.
The International is at 15cm of snow of the ground. That is just a bit below average, and it is more than the 10cm which we had last year. But last winter the snow really took off in late January.
So that is where things stand so far. We're halfway through! But who knows what the next half will bring?
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