Season colder, snowier than normal in Calgary

Cold facts of winter:

* -9.6° C February’s average temperature. Normal is -6.1 C.

* 23.4 February’s snowfall in centimetres. Normal is 13.4 cm.

* 228 Traffic accidents in Calgary on Tuesday.

This winter has been long. It’s been cold. It’s been snowy.

And for stay-at-home mom Sue Tyerman, only one thing has kept her sane: a plethora of fuzzy pom-poms, school glue and pipe cleaners.

"We go out for walks some days, but other than that, it’s been too cold to take little kids out," she said.

She and her family, including her three-year-old son, relocated to Calgary from British Columbia more than two years ago. Her first experience of a Prairie winter was not made for the front of a Hallmark card.

"It was very boring because you’re housebound the whole time and because we didn’t know anybody, I actually went through a lot of depression."

This year, the temperatures have been colder, the snow has been heavier and the wind more fierce.

"I stocked up on craft supplies and things to do indoors. It’s been pretty good, but we’re starting to get bored right now," Tyerman said.

David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, confirms Calgarians are not whinging unduly: This winter has been a bad one. To make matters worse, March will likely offer little respite.

"The thing is, it doesn’t look good if you want winter to end," Phillips said. "It should be 2 C in Calgary (Tuesday) afternoon. It’s going to be -19 C."

Even for the Prairies, he admits winter is starting to overstay its welcome.

"The weather is always changing in Calgary, but this is ridiculous," he said.

The city endured the first few months of winter with optimism.

It took only weeks for warm-winter hopes to be dashed.

"People were optimistic about winter in October, and then the roof caved in," he said.

In some southern Alberta cold spots, that proved to be literally true.

An abandoned church hall in Medicine Hat suffered a roof cavein January because of the snow.

Between November and February, Phillips said Calgary saw about 40 per cent more snowfall than the average. Temperatures have dropped between 1 and 3.5 degrees below their norms, and the region has been subject to freak hail and windstorms.

Two weeks ago, southern Alberta recorded winds of up to 140 km/h, knocking semi-trailers of the road and ripping up roofs.

The weather has caused more road closures than Albertans typically tolerate.

Trent Bancarz, spokesman for Alberta Transportation, said the combination of wind and snow had caused snow drifts to pile on roads that were normally clear.

"It’s very rare for us to outright close a highway. We don’t usually do that, but this year, we’ve done it on a few occasions. Conditions got to a point where it just wasn’t safe for people to travel through there," he said.

About 100 travellers were stranded in the town of Bassano near Strathmore when a massive snow dump closed the highway east of Calgary for a weekend.

Highway 3 west of the Crowsnest Pass opened Tuesday morning after it was closed for about a day.

"Visibility was next to nothing," Bancarz said.

In addition, fear of avalanche conditions have closed an unusual number of roads through the Rockies.

The TransCanada Highway has been closed at least four times since the beginning of the year, once for three days straight.

"The amounts of snow we have received the past couple of months, coupled with periodic warming events, have allowed for some very unusual and unpredictable snow conditions throughout the mountains," read a statement from Pam Veinotte, the superintendent of Lake Louise, Yoho and the Kootenay National Parks field unit.

A born and raised Calgarian, 63-year-old Dave Leggott confirmed that this year’s winter feels more akin to the brutal conditions he last saw in the 1970s. He said the blessed chinooks have been fewer and farther between.

"You have to complain about something, so you complain about the weather. At least it’s something to talk about," he said.

"But I don’t think we really have anything to complain about. We do get winter here and this is just an abnormal one."

jgerson@calgaryherald.com