Enjoy these splendid days while they last, Calgary
Summer-like weather persists
Following a year of wacky weather, Calgary may be in store for another round of against-the-grain temperatures in the coming days.
While daytime averages usually clock in around five degrees at this time of year, Calgarians can expect temperatures of 18, 17 and 12 C beginning Tuesday through Thursday — summer-like temperatures in a time usually coloured white.
Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips said it’s almost as if September and November have been flipped around.
“These temperatures are typical of Labour Day, not Remembrance Day,” Phillips said.
However, with Calgary being a city used to the warming nature of chinooks passing through every winter, residents are used to this sort of thing, but not for this long.
“These should be one- or two-day wonders, not two-week wonders. Even when it cools off to 12, we are still seven degrees over the average high,” he said.
It’s not just Calgary’s warmer temperatures that have made weather headlines across the country.
A near-record-setting 206.1 mm hit the ground in July, which is just 40 mm short of the all-time record of 246 mm set in 1927.
In total, July saw 13 days with five mm or more of rain, including an astounding 10 days in a row, which covered all 10 days of the Calgary Stampede.
But what is to blame for the summer-like temperatures?
“It’s almost like a dome being put over Western Canada. Under that dome, none of the heat which we are picking up is escaping,” Phillips said.
To put it into perspective, the forecasted daytime high for Remembrance Day is 14 C, with a low of just 4 C. Normally, the average high is four degrees Celsius.
“It can be the warmest Remembrance Day for 121 years,” Phillips said.
The recent opening of Sunshine Village — the earliest opening in three decades — adds clout to Phillips’ argument, as it seems to be status quo elsewhere in the province, but as usual, Calgary is in a league of its own.
“This is the strangest bout of wonderful weather after a kiss of winter I’ve ever seen,” Phillips said.
However, the post-Thanksgiving golf will come to an end sooner than later, and Phillips thinks he has pinpointed the time the anvil will drop.
“It’s going to come crashing down, it’s just Mother Nature setting us up for the big fall,” he said.
“In about 10 days, you’ll start to see all freezing days with highs of maybe -5 C degrees,” he added.