CALGARY – The temperature reached a soaring 23.5 degrees Celsius in Calgary on Friday but fell short of a projected record-breaking high.
“Because we had such thick mid-level and high-level cloud, we actually couldn’t get that heat through,” Global Calgary weather specialist Jodi Hughes said.
According to Environment Canada, the previous record high for Calgary on April 8 was set in 1977, when the city hit 25 degrees Celsius.
Seven Alberta locations were forecasted to break heat scores, another seven were expected to come close. In the end, Lethbridge, Pincher Creek, Claresholm, Waterton, Jasper and Vauxhall all broke records, according to Environment Canada.
Another four locations, including Calgary, came within at least 1.5 degrees of breaking a new record.
The hot spot in all of Canada was in Enchant, Alberta. That town hit a high of 28.7 degrees Celsius on Friday.
Temperatures throughout the weekend in Calgary are expected to dip down to 16 degrees Celsius on Saturday and 11 degrees Celsius on Sunday, both days with a mix of sun and cloud.
In the next 24 hours, however, unusual weather is expected to hit other parts of Alberta. Central-east parts of the province have wind warnings with wind gusts expected to reach 60 to 90 kilometres an hour. There are also snowfall warnings in the northeast part of the province.
With files from Jodi Hughes.