EDMONTON – For two months in a row, Edmonton has seen its fifth warmest average temperatures since record-keeping began in the late 1880s.
Average temperatures were 7.9°C above average in February and 4.7°C warmer this March, according to Environment Canada.
“We’re coming off the tail end of a very strong El Niño event, where for western Canada, that means warmer and drier than normal conditions,” Kirk Torneby, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, explained. “We have lived up to that expectation,” he continued, noting that elsewhere across Alberta, temperatures have been at least 2 to 5°C above average.
In terms of precipitation, the numbers were far closer to average this past month than they were in February. Edmonton saw 13.9 mm, or 87 per cent of normal precipitation this March. In contrast, this February generated just 58 per cent of the normal totals for rain or snow.
But not everyone in Alberta saw the upwards trend in moisture this month.
“It has been really dry across the province, especially in central and southern Alberta,” Torneby said, noting that many areas have seen 50 to 75 per cent less moisture than normal through the winter and spring.
“Long-range climate predictions from across the world are actually showing that this summer we are moving to a more neutral or less impactful state of El Niño,” he explained.
Warm waters in the east Pacific Ocean, the main driver of El Niño behaviour, have showed signs of cooling recently according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
The NOAA says it believes that “a transition to ENSO-neutral is likely during late Northern Hemisphere spring or early summer 2016, with close to a 50 per cent chance for La Niña conditions to develop by the fall.”
Torneby said the shift from El Niño positive to a more neutral, or even a La Niña situation by the late summer could mean “even more precipitation than normal.” This also means Edmontonians will start to see temperatures that more closely resemble the long-term average trends.
“Looking towards the next three months, long-range models are showing one to two degrees above normal for this time of year,” Torneby said.
As concerns grow throughout Alberta about the potential impact of drought on agriculture and wildfires, Torneby warned that it’s what’s to come that is important.
“From April through June is when we get those cold rains through this time of year. That’s the important stuff, to keep the ground wet if we haven’t had the snow pack through the winter,” he concluded.
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