County residents will have a chance to thaw out this week after last week’s cold snap, say meteorologists.
Environment Canada was predicting daytime highs of up to 2 C for the rest of this week, with lows bottoming out at a relatively toasty -7 C.
That’s much warmer than last week, which saw temperatures dip as low as -21 C in some regions.
“We’re going back to a more western-type pattern aloft,” explains Nick Nimchuk, fire weather meteorologist with Alberta Sustainable Resources, which means winds coming out of the west. That’s keeping the cold, arctic air responsible for cold snaps away from us.
Current temperatures are right around the -5 C average expected for this time of year, Nimchuk said.
“It doesn’t look like there’s any major cold snaps (coming), certainly for the next 10 days.”
Environment Canada is predicting some snow for Saturday, but it’s too soon to tell how much, said meteorologist Dan Kulak. The 30-day forecast predicts this region should be close to normal in terms of temperature, while the three-month outlook gives an outside chance that the winter might be warmer than usual.
Farmers will be looking for a thick snowpack this winter to keep the soil warm and replenish its water reserves, said Ralph Wright, soil moisture technician with Alberta Agriculture.
“It’s been dry since the beginning of August,” he noted, with just 65 to 90 millimetres of rain falling on Sturgeon County this fall – about half the 125 to 140 mm we’d usually get. That’s sent soil moisture reserves in the northwest to one-in-12 year lows.
That didn’t affect this year’s crop, though, which reports generally suggest will be 10 to 20 per cent above the five-year average, Wright continued. Crops are also more strongly influenced by rains during the critical spring growth period than winter snowpack, he added.
Weather.gc.ca has more information on local weather conditions.
