Family Day - 2019 Edition

Today we are looking at the history of weather for the Family Day long weekend.

Temperatures

Family Day was introduced in Alberta in 1990, and a holiday in mid-February in Alberta maybe doesn't seem like such a great idea? But generally the temperatures have been fairly warm, with an average High of -2.2°C and an average Low of -11.3°C.

2018 was fairly cold, with Highs around -10°C and the Lows closer to -20°C. And 2019 will probably be a bit colder than that. But the 5 Family Days from 2012-2017 all had Highs around or above freezing.

2016 was the warmest-overall Family Day weekend with all three days between 5-7°C. The coldest-overall was back in 1994, and it is the only Family Day weekend that was a complete deepfreeze, with all three Highs down around the -20°C mark. For the very first Family Day in 1990 the temperature swung from a low of -31.2°C on the Saturday up to a balmy high of 2.6°C for the holiday Monday.


Precipitation 

For precipitation it is no surprise that snow happens a lot more often on the Family Day long weekend than rain does. But the day here with the most precipitation was February 14, 2015 (the Saturday of that long weekend) with 7.4mm of rain.

In 2018 there was no precipitation, and 2017 had a mix of rain and snow.


Snow on the Ground

And finally, this chart shows how the snowdepth at the International Airport changes from February 14-21, which is the week in which Family Day moves around.

The average is about 20cm, and this year we are high at 33cm. Last year was also a bit high at 25cm. And during the really warm week in 2017 the snowdepth fell from about 12cm down to 2cm.


Updated for 2019:

Family Day Weekend 2019: the coldest since 2011, and much colder than 2012-2017.