2023 Year-in-Review Part 2: Precipitation

Are you ready for our 2023 Year-in-Review Part 2: Precipitation! 

We will take a look at Edmonton, and some other cities across Canada:

Edmonton averages 435mm of combined precipitation (rain + snow) per year. 

In 2023 the airport was right on the average with 432mm, Stony Plain was a little high with 456mm, and Blatchford was a little low with 406mm.

Of all of the stations in the Edmonton area New Sarepta had the most with 464mm.

The lowest was South Campus with 297mm, although it might have been missing some days. The 2nd lowest was St. Albert at 391mm.

On a monthly basis June-August were above-average, and were when we got most of our rain.

January, March and October-December were all some of the lowest years on record.

The total precipitation for October-December was 6.8mm at Blatchford, 10mm at the airport, and 5.9mm at Stony Plain. That's bottom-5 for Blatchford, and the lowest since the 1960s for the airport and Stony Plain.



Big Storms

Our peak rain season is mid-May through mid-August.

The big storm for 2023 was on June 18th with 52mm at Blatchford, 41mm at the airport, and 47mm in Stony Plain.

For large 20mm+ storms Blatchford had 5, the International had 7, and Stony Plain had 9.

Blatchford's 52mm storm was pretty rare for us.

The last time that Blatchford recorded a 50mm+ day was 2012, and for the airport it was 2001. Stony Plain had 2 in 2022, and one in 2016, 2012 & 2011.



Precipitation Across Canada

For cities across Canada the total precipitation ranged from Saskatoon at 232mm up to Halifax near 1600mm.

None of those cities were well above average this year, but Vancouver's 875mm was roughly bottom-10 for them, and Calgary's 348mm was pretty low for them.



Big Storms Across Canada

These festive-looking charts show the biggest storms of the year.

Halifax had the biggest days, with 60.6mm on August 5th and 58.9mm on July 21st.

Other big days:

• Winnipeg's 54mm on June 3rd 
• Montréal's 53mm on December 18th 
• Blatchford's 52mm on June 18th 
• St. John's 51mm on October 16th.

Halifax was also the winner for the most big storms, with 9 40mm+ days. St. John's had 4, Blatchford had 2, and Vancouver, Winnipeg & Montréal all had 1.

And that's the end of Part 2 of our 2023 Year-in-Review. In Part 3 we will take a look at snow.