While New Years Day wasn’t a shorts and t-shirt day, Mike Maskell, president of the Winnipeg Gliding Club, said it was a great day to be in the air.
“As it turned out, the weather gods co-operated,” he said. “There was very little snow on the ground, which is rare for this time of year.”
Natalie Hasell, warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the only significant snow in the province is up north, is in places like Tadoule Lake.
But in Winnipeg, there’s only two centimetres of snow, she said, adding that’s 11 short of the norm for this time of year.
That’s alright by Maskell though, who said gliders started making their trips through the sky just after noon. Initially “the sun was beaming down,” he said, and despite a bit of a southern windchill “everybody was pretty stoked about being there. Of course, we were dressed for the outdoor climate this time of year, and it turned out to be a rather nice day. By about 2 p.m. the winds had abated, the sun was in and out of the clouds. We came back just at the end of the day and made a very pleasant afternoon of it.”
The typical gliding season usually happens over the summer months, Maskell said, when the sun really beats down on the ground and generates “thermals, which are basically bubbles rising – air currents that allows the gliders to stay up for a longer period of time.”
Usually, he said, the gliding season lasts from the end of April or early May to the end of October. “It was certainly a rare event for the Winnipeg Gliding Club to be operating on January the first.”
However, Maskell said there was one other time in the club’s history this happened – 54 years ago.
Hasell said while it may not look like winter right now, it’s going to feel like it and has already started too.
“We’re actually at temperatures that are much closer to normal right now,” she said. “Typically at this time of year, stats suggest that we should see a daytime temperature of -13 C, and then a nighttime, or early morning temperature of -23 C.”
She said temperatures are still above normal, but they’ve definitely dropped and will sit closer to daytime and nighttime averages early next week. By mid-week, Hasell said they will even be below averages.
“It’s definitely winter by next week,” she said, adding overnight temperatures could even reach -40 C, but it’s hard to say so early.
She said, “people should be prepared for at least uncomfortable conditions, if not dangerous conditions.”
The warning preparedness meteorologist said to avoid being outside in extreme cold if possible, to think about shelter options of heating, insulation or power is an issue, to dress in layers, and prepare an emergency kit.
Hasell said more tips on staying safe in the cold can be found online at canada.ca.
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