December deep freeze
Albertans can only shiver in envy at North and South Poles, Siberia.
It is so cold in Alberta that the start of a sled-dog race in Didsbury is being pushed back an hour Saturday due to frigid temperatures.
It is so cold in Edmonton that the ears fell off the Robbie Burns statue outside the Hotel MacDonald.
OK, they didn’t really. But it is pretty flipping cold.
The good news — sort of — is that Gina Ressler, a meteorologist at the Weather Network in Mississauga, says a slight warming trend is on the way.
Temperatures in Edmonton will rise from -30 or so Saturday morning to about -15 late Saturday night, and will then soar into the minus single digits on Monday.
Then another cold front is expected.
“It’s just crazy,” said Ressler, who earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta. “I feel your pain.”
Here are a few numbers to mull about that pain:
-25 The at Edmonton high recorded International Airport on Friday. The warmest temperature in Canada on Friday was 12.6 C in Greenwood, N.S. Punks.
-33.7 The bonechilling low recorded at Edmonton International. That is frosty, but substantially short of the record for the date. That was -41.7 in 1882. The temperature at City Centre Airport bottomed out at -30.3, the coldest reading of 2013.
-42 The estimated wind chill, or temperature it felt like in Edmonton when temperature and wind speed were combined. Lowest estimated wind chill in Edmonton history: -61 on Jan. 26, 1972.
5 to 10 minutes Amount of time it takes for exposed skin to freeze at -40 C.
-40 The low Friday morning at Leedale, a hamlet in Ponoka County 59 kilometres northwest of Red Deer. It was the lowest temperature Friday recorded anywhere on Earth. Manning, 73 km north of Peace River in northern Alberta, was the next coldest at -39.8.
+52 Temperature at Santa Elena de Uaren, Venezuela, the warmest recorded place on Earth on Friday.
-5 Ah, for the balmy breezes of Siberia. That was Friday’s temperature in Tomsk.
4,242 The number of service calls logged as of 5 p.m. Friday by the Alberta Motor Association. Most calls in Edmonton were for battery boosts. The average wait was seven hours.
16 hours, 39 minutes The average wait time in Edmonton for a tow or a winch at 4 p.m., according to the AMA.
300 The number of people waiting for the doors to open Friday morning at the water park at West Edmonton Mall. Inside, it was 31 C. Also, the number of vehicles requiring a boost at Edmonton International Airport. The number of vehicles needing assistance on a normal winter day is 75 to 100.
1 hour, 20 minutes Length of time it took for a medium double-double from Tim Hortons to freeze on the fifthfloor balcony at the Edmonton Journal. The 15-ounce cup was 85 C at the start.
500 Approximate number of students attending an impromptu sock hop at Greenfield School in Edmonton. The lunch-hour dance was arranged by parents Fred and Melody Mah to reward students who had to skip recess all week due to cold weather. Selections played: will.i.am’s I Like to Move It, Kool & The Gang’s Celebration and PSY’s Gangnam Style.
$739.50 Cost of a round trip flight leaving Edmonton for Maui today, with a return on Dec. 14. As quoted on Cheapoair.com. Don Ho is calling.
Hawaiian crooner Don Ho