Calgary basks in recordbreaking heat wave
After Calgarians spent the weekend sunning in T-shirts and tank tops — boasting some of the warmest weather on the continent — they can keep working on that tan well into the week, with doubledigit temperatures expected to last until Thursday.
And with a slow but not unpleasant trend toward chillier weather by the middle of next week, the snow is expected to start falling just in time for a perfectly white Christmas.
“It’s really quite amazing what’s happening in Calgary — a gigantic chinook, really,” said David Phillips, senior climatologist for Environment Canada.
“It’s absolutely glorious right now — more like golfing weather than skiing weather.
“You haven’t had any precipitation the entire month of December. But then as you get closer to Christmas, the snow will still come. So that will be magical too.”
Calgary broke all-time records for warmth this weekend, hitting a high of 15 C on Saturday, cracking the historical high of 14 set more than a century ago in 1890.
Sunday’s high also came close to that record, reaching 14 C in the afternoon, making Calgary one of the warmest cities on the continent, with only parts of the Southern U.S. being warmer, and St. John’s, N.L., coming in at a weirdly warm 18.
“There’s this warm system coming through the entire western half of the continent, and it’s just not leaving Calgary,” Phillips said.
“It’s actually the same system that’s responsible for the heat in California, and what’s causing the forest fires there.
“So what has been misery for one region has been joy for another.”
Meanwhile, the eastern half of Canada and the U.S. is suffering in typical winter-like weather, with parts of Ontario expecting an “Alberta clipper” blizzard over the next few days.
“It’s scandalous, really, that Toronto is getting a snowstorm that literally is named after Alberta. Meanwhile, you guys are just soaking up the sun.”
Calgarians soaked up the summer weather all weekend, taking in a full 18 holes of golf at Fox Hollow, or strolling through the Calgary Zoo, which hit a near record for attendance on Friday, with more than 8,600 Calgarians on the grounds.
“The weather has been great. It’s bringing a lot of people out, and it’s keeping us hopping, too,” said zoo spokeswoman Trish ExtonParder.
“People love coming to the zoo, whether it’s warm or cold. But when you’ve got temperatures like this, they can come for a much longer time and linger for hours.”
The annual Calgary Zoolights has been running nightly since the end of November. Friday saw more than 5,500 visitors after dark, adding to the 3,100 who were there during the day.
More than 100 golfers hit Fox Hollow over the weekend too, said assistant pro Bryce Dancer.
“We’ve been open in December before, but we’ve never seen this many people,” he said.
“It’s beautiful and people are loving it. They come in from their rounds saying it’s just like spring out there.”
Calgary will continue its warming trend, with a mix of highs between 10-12 C throughout the week and temperatures chilling only slightly over the following weekend with highs between 3-6 C forecast.
The week of Christmas will finally dip below zero, with a sprinkling of snow flurries, possibly up to two centimetres, expected between Dec. 21-23.
Phillips says that, when Alberta gets its share of chinook-like weather, it’s always important to get out and enjoy it.
“Let’s face it, we deserve it,” he said. “We are, in fact, the secondcoldest country in the world and the snowiest.
“So whenever we get these lovely interludes of warmth, it just makes winter shorter, and that much more bearable.”