April 2023 Review

It's time to take a look back at Edmonton's weather for April 2023.

April 2023 was a little bit warm. The average High of 11.6°C was our 59th warmest since 1880. The average Low of 0.3°C was the 30th warmest.

April (along with October) is a rare month where our average Highs have not increased over the past century.



High Temperatures

April 2023's High were near average, with a few warm days early and late in the month, and a few cool days around the 21st. The coldest High was 2.7°C on the 21st, and the warmest was 23.7°C on the 30th. 

Overall 20 Highs were below average and 10 were above.

In April we average 2 Highs below freezing, and 2023 had 0. We average 7 Highs above 15°C, and in 2023 had 8. And on average April has 2 days reach 20°C, but 2023 only had 1.



Low Temperatures

April 2023's Lows mostly followed the 30-year average pretty closely, except for a few warm ones right at the end of the month. Overall 19 were above average and 11 were below.

In April we average 14 Lows below freezing, and 2023 had 15. But our coldest Low was only -4.7°C on the 5th.

We also had 3 Lows above 5°C, when April averages 2.



Final Frost

For Blatchford the average date of the final spring frost is May 6th. Right now we haven't had a frost since April 22nd. We will probably get a few more. But 2020's final spring frost was April 19th, and 2012's was the 18th. So we could possibly be done already.

On average Stony Plain's final frost is just a few days after Blatchford's, but the airport's is closer to the end of May on May 24th.



Warm & Cold Months

April 2023 was a bit warmer than the 20th century average, and is a small orange bubble here. That follows a cool March and an above-average February and January. The average High of 11.6°C was 0.9°C warmer, and the average Low of 0.3°C was 1.8°C warmer.



Across Canada

For April 2023 Edmonton and Calgary were standouts in the west with temperatures a little above average. The rest of the west was pretty cool with temperatures around -2°C or more below their 20th century averages. Central Canada was 2~3°C above their averages.



Snow

In April we average 14cm of snow. 

In 2023 we technically got 10.6cm at the airport, all on April 11th. I say "technically" because April 11th was really rainy, but no one posted any photos of snow at the airport, so I don't know that it should really count.

The somewhat questionable 10cm of snow for April brings our total for the winter of 2022-2023 to 74.7cm.

That's well below our average of around 122cm, and is the airport's 6th lowest since 1961.

We always could still get snow in May, but so far our largest snowstorm for the winter of 2022-2023 was the suspicious 10.6cm on April 11th. After that was 8.8cm on November 2nd, which followed 4.4cm on the 1st for a 2-day total of 13.2cm.



Snow Across Canada

Across Canada the biggest April snowfall was Edmonton's suspicious 10.6cm on April 11th.

Calgary, Ottawa, Montréal, Halifax and St. John's also all got some snow.

This messy chart has the snow totals for the winter of 2022-2023. 

Ottawa holds onto the top spot with 333.5cm (6th highest for them) followed by St. John's with 300.4cm. 

Calgary's 159.4cm more than doubled Edmonton's 74.7cm.



Snowdepth

2023's big melt happened a little big earlier than average. 

The final snowdepth records around town were: 

• Stony Plain - March 29
• Campsie - April 1 
• Airport - April 5 
• Elk Island - April 11 

Recently 2020 and 2018 all stretched into mid-late April.

Across the country Winnipeg, Ottawa and St. John's held onto their snow the longest, with final snowdepths on April 10th, 10th and 13th respectively. (Winnipeg then got a second batch which held on until the 28th, but I'm not sure how trustworthy those numbers are)



Precipitation

In April we average 26mm of Precipitation. 

In 2023 we were low with 14mm at Blatchford, 16mm at the airport, and 17mm at Stony Plain.

By the end of April we average 75mm or Precipitation. So far the airport and Stony Plain are only around 34mm. The local station with the most precipitation so far is South Campus with 48mm.

Our largest precipitation day so far in 2023 was April 11th, with 8.5mm at Blatchford, 10.7mm at Stony Plain, and 13.1mm at the aiport. But our rainy season usually gets started in a few weeks around mid-May.



May

For May we average a week or two of days above 20°C. 

About a quarter of the time our final frost is in April, but more typically May has a handful of frosty nights. 

And the airport recorded May snow in 2021, 2020, 2019, 2015...