February 2025 Review

February 2025 weather in Edmonton was quite the rollercoaster. So let's buckle up and enjoy the ride...

If you are reading this from the future, the dashboards in these posts tend to break pretty easily, and may no longer match with the text. An archive of the post with the original images is on bluesky.

 

February 2025 ended up pretty cool. 

The average High of -7.9°C was the 111th warmest on record, and average Low of -17.4°C was 98th warmest. 

That's a bit cooler than 2018, a bit warmer than 2021 & 2014, and a lot warmer than 2019 which was a bottom-5 February for us.

February used to be our 2nd or 3rd coldest month - much warmer than January, but swapping back & forth with December. 

But January has warmed up a lot (~9°C!), while February is only up by 3~4°C. 

So for 10-year averages, February has recently been our coldest month.





High Temperatures

February was a weird month: well below average from the 1st to the 19th, and then right at the top of our range from the 22nd to the end of the month. 

That's 19 below-average Highs, and 9 above-average, including a new record of 12.5°C on the 22nd.

February averages 12 above-freezing Highs. 

 2025 only got to 9, all at the end of the month. But that included 8 5°C Highs (average is 4), and 3 10°C Highs (average is less than 1). 

It also had 3 -20°C Highs (average is 1). 

The warmest was 12.5°C and coldest was -23.9°C.





Warm Days

Somewhat surprisingly, February 2025 had 7 Highs in-a-row reach 8°C, which is tied for the 2nd most on record for February. 1954 & 1916 both got to 8. 

The 3 10°C Highs were also pretty unusual, although several years had 4 or 5, and 1889 got to 6.

For "warm" days from December-February we had 41 above-freezing Highs, or about 45% of the time. The average is around 37 days. 

18 (20%) of those got to 5°C, which is pretty typical for recent years, but our long-term average is closer to 14.



Low Temperatures

February's Lows were pretty cold up to the 20th, with 3 as the coldest in 30 years. 

Then they were pretty warm, with a new record of 0.3°C on the 23rd. 

Overall 20 Lows were below-average, and 8 were above.

February averages around 6 -20°C Lows, and 2025 had 13. 

That included 11 below -25°C when the average is only 2. The coldest was -30.3°C on the 18th. 

And because it was a weird month it also had 3 above-freezing Lows, which is the most since 2017.



The Deepfreeze 

We talked about the deepfreeze in detail here. 

February 2025 had 20 Lows below -17°C in-a-row, and 20 Highs below -6 in-a-row, which were both the longest streaks since 1996. But it was a bit of a baby deepfreeze compared to February 2019.



Cold Days So Far

We're near the end of our deepfreeze season, although -20°C Lows sometimes show up throughout March. But right now we've had 19, which is below our average of around 25. 

That includes 14 -25°C Lows, which is more than our average of 11.

Even -30°C Lows can sneak into the first week of March. But right now we've had 1, which is the the fewest since 2016-2017.

The last 7 winters have all had at least 3 of them, with 2023-2024 getting to 5.



Warm & Cold Months

2025 gives us another a blue/cold February, along with 2021, 2019, 2018, 2014... 

The average High of -7.9°C was -3°C colder than the 20th century average. The average Low of -17.4°C was -2.2°C colder.



The Horserace

2 months into 2025, and we're a bit warmer than the 20th century average. January pushed us way up, then the deepfreeze dragged us back down, with a little bounce back at the end. That puts 2025 as the 37th warmest overall.



Across Canada

February was colder than average across a lot of the country. 

Dawson City was the big standout with a High 3.2°C above its 20th century average, while Calgary was at the bottom at -5.9°C below theirs.

In Edmonton, February 2025 was much warmer than 2019, and was a bit warmer than 2021 & 2014. 

In Calgary February 2025 was also much warmer than 2019, but compared to 2021 & 2014 it was in the same range or even a bit colder.



Snow

In February we average around 14cm of snowfall, which typically makes it the least snowy of the big winter months. 

And February 2025 was well below that with only 4.5cm, and 8 snowy days.

By this point of the winter we average 80cm of snowfall. 

This winter we're a little low, with 69cm.

Across the country Charlottetown is way up at 353cm, well above 2nd place Ottawa's 209cm.

Big Storms

Edmonton had no February storms to speak of, but Montréal had two 30cm+ days on the 13th and 16th, and Ottawa got 27cm & 33cm.

Ottawa's 109cm was their 3rd snowiest February on record. 

Montréal's 106cm was their 7th snowiest. 

Toronto's 78cm was also their 2nd snowiest. 

(and keep in mind that so far Edmonton has only gotten 69cm over the entire winter)



Snowdepth

At the end of February we average 22cm of snowdepth. Most of the month was well above average, but the late warmspell caused some melting. 

Elk Island fell from 46cm to 35cm, the airport fell from 36cm to 13cm, and Stony Plain fell from 27cm to 8cm.

On average our snowdepth starts to drop after the first week of March. 

A lot of winters are basically snowfree by the end of March, although some (like 2023, 2020 & 2018) hang on until mid-April. 

April almost always gets snow, but it doesn't stick around.

Across the country the snowdepth really jumped up in Charlottetown, Ottawa, Moncton, Quebec City, and Toronto. Montréal saw a bump too, although only up to 30cm, even though it got 97cm of snowfall.

This is a closer look at the snowdepth for the Ontario and Quebec cities, along with their recent histories (and also a comparison to slow & steady Edmonton).



March

March averages 20 days with Highs above freezing. It's often when we start to hit 10°C, although we've already had 3 of those.

However, it also averages 3 -20°C Lows, and 20cm of snowfall.