2023 Year-in-Review Part 3: Snow

And finally we have reached the end of our 2023 Year-in-Review Part 3: Snow! 

How was the snow for Edmonton and other Canadian cities last year?

(Blatchford no longer records snowfall or snowdepth, so most of the numbers will be from the International Airport)



Monthly Snow

Here we have the snow for each month (including during the summer).

There wasn't a month in 2023 which reached our average snowfall, and months like January, March, November & December were some of the lowest on record.



Total Snow

This chart has the cumulative snow for year (it looks a little strange because it includes the summer months).

We average about 120cm of snow each year, and in 2023 the airport recorded...36.8cm. The airport's previous lowest year was 51.5cm in 1981.



Snow Across Canada

For these cities across Canada Vancouver's 19cm was the lowest, then Edmonton's 37cm. Calgary recorded 100cm more than us, with 137cm. Up at the top are Ottawa with 260cm and St. John's with 363cm.



Last & First Snowfalls

There wasn't much snow to speak of in 2023, but our final spring snowfall was on April 11th, which is a few weeks early. The first fall snow was on October 23rd, which is right on average.

This is a comparison of the snow seasons, with Edmonton and Calgary usually starting around October 1st and lasting through May 1st. Central and Eastern Canada start a month or so later in November, and usually end in April.



The Spring Melt

Edmonton had a fairly early spring melt in 2023, with the snow mostly gone at the stations by the first week of April, while is can sometimes hang on a bit longer into April.

This one is a little busy, but it shows the spring 2023 snow depths for other cities. Winnipeg, Ottawa & St. John's all hung onto their snow a little longer than Edmonton, into mid-April.



Fall Snow

For fall snow there's not a lot to talk about so far.

We got some early snow in the last week of October, then nothing in November, and then a little bit showed up in December.

Snow normally starts to stick around between November 1~15, and with what we've got so far this is the least snowy winter since 2005-2006.

 

A busy chart again, but at the end of 2023 nobody has much snow on the ground. Ottawa, Montréal, Halifax & St. John's all had some temporary spikes in early December, but those melted-off.



Snowstorms

It's tough to talk about snowstorms when the airport had its least snowy year on record.

But the biggest day was 10.6cm on April 11th, with a quarter of the snow for the year. Everything else was around 3cm or less.

For really big 20cm+ storms (over 2 days): 

• Calgary had 36cm in January 
• Toronto had 24cm in March 
• Ottawa had 26cm in January 
• Montréal had 35cm in December 
• Halifax had 26cm in December 
• St. John's had 47cm in January

The biggest single-day snowfalls were: St. John's with 34cm & 32cm Calgary with 34cm And Ottawa & Montréal had 20cm+ days.

And that finally brings us to the end of our long look back at the weather for 2023. As always, all of these charts are interactive dashboards for all of these Canadian cities.