Cold snap ends on record-setting note
Hamilton colder than Yellowknife and even Inuvik
If you can read this, between your chattering teeth and frozen eyelashes, congratulations.
You made it. You survived the record-breaking chill, which should now be in our rear-view mirrors for perhaps the next couple of weeks.
Record-setting cold temperatures Friday and Saturday put an unpleasant final exclamation point on a cold snap that has dragged on for nearly a month.
The mercury dipped to -24.4 Celsius early Saturday morning at the Hamilton airport monitoring station, breaking the previous record of -22.8 for that date set in 2014.
Friday morning’s low of -21.4 was also a record, breaking the mark of -19.4 set nearly half a century ago, in 1968.
“We’ve been beating the old records by a couple of degrees so it’s substantial,” said Steve Knott, a severe weather meteorologist with Environment Canada.
Sunday’s early morning low of -23.6 was almost a record breaker as well, just slightly warmer than the record low of -24 for Jan. 7 set in 2014.
Normal highs for this time of year are -2 and lows are normally -9.
It was colder in Hamilton the past couple of days than Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. Way colder than Fort McMurray. Colder even than Inuvik, for crying out loud, and that’s near the shores of the Arctic Ocean.
But what’s been particularly aggravating has been the persistence of the cold weather.
It hasn’t been warmer than -8 in Hamilton since the afternoon of Christmas Day. It hasn’t been above 0 C since 3 a.m. on Dec. 20.
Shall I continue? By Monday, there will have only been three days since Dec. 9 where the mercury managed to nudge past 0 C.
“The jet stream has been locked in place, riding up on Alaska and diving down well below us,” said Knott, “and that jet stream pattern has been stationary for about a month.”
You don’t have to tell that to Maher Aldulaimi and Charlee Boukhers.
Saturday morning, they were at their customary posts, pumping gas at the full-serve Pioneer station on Main Street West near McMaster University.
“I think we need to do more damage to the environment, then we’ll have Florida weather here,” joked Boukhers, who came to Canada 23 years ago from Lebanon. “We were doing so good, I don’t know what happened.
“Everyone’s doing the emissions test and we’re back to square 1.”
He’s wearing snow pants, winter boots, thick winter coat, tuque, hood and ski mask.
“From here to here, I’m fine,” he said pointing from his nose down to his ankles. “But it’s my hands and feet. There’s no circulation.”
Even still, he’ll take Canada over Lebanon. “This is the price you pay for freedom,” he said.
The irony is that the cold weather means the pair have to spend even more time outside. There’s a neverending stream of cars pulling into the small station.
“It’s so busy, I can’t take any breaks,” said Aldulaimi, who came to Canada in 2009 from Iraq. “I can’t even eat, I get maybe one bite.”
Aldulaimi said his brother had just phoned him from Iraq, where the temperature was above 20 C.
“But the temperature was going down to 10 C and he said he was going to die from the cold,” Aldulaimi added with a laugh.
Life should be far more bearable for the two men Monday, when the daily high could sneak past the freezing point for the first time in almost three weeks.
“We are starting to slowly see some moderation,” said Knott.
The Weather Network’s longrange forecast for Hamilton suggests temperatures could be above freezing for six of the next 14 days, with the possibility of five millimetres of rain on Thursday and a high of 5.