It snowed for 23 out of 24 hours Thanksgiving Monday, according to the official weather station at the Calgary International Airport where records are kept.
According to the hourly observations it was only light snowfall that fell so Calgary ended the day with a total of 4.4 centimetres of snow. That accumulation was enough to go down in the record books as the snowiest Thanksgiving Monday in history.
Editor’s Note: Records are limited because Thanksgiving didn’t have a set day in Canada until 1931. From 1931 on, Thanksgiving was considered to occur on the second Monday of October.
WHITE TURKEY DAY
While snow is not unusual in October in Calgary, records show it is rare on Thanksgiving Monday.
Looking at all Thanksgiving Mondays over the past 85 years, there have only been 10 days where snow fell. On three of those days there was a trace amount, or less than 0.2 centimetres of snow, and the other seven days ranged from 0.5 centimetres to 4.4 centimetres.
Typically October is the eighth snowiest month in Calgary with an average total of 10 centimetres of snow by the 31st.
One of the reasons snow is so unusual on Thanksgiving Monday is that the temperature is often unseasonably warm.
AVERAGE DAYTIME HIGHS
When when considering the average daytime high for Thanksgiving Monday, you must factor in the range of dates since the holiday could occur anywhere from Oct. 8 to Oct. 14. The average daytime high fluctuates between 13°C to 14°C in that period.
There have been 50 Thanksgiving Mondays out of the past 85 with daytime highs of at least 13°C. Of those 50, 14 years had daytime highs of at least 20°C.
The warmest Thanksgiving Monday was in 1964 when the high temperature was just shy of 28°C.
THE COLD FACTS
On the flip side of the numbers, there have only been two years that had daytime highs below freezing. The coldest end to the holiday weekend was in 2009, when the daytime high was -5.1°C.
The only other Thanksgiving Monday that was officially freezing was this year when the high temperature was -0.2°C.
The good news is Calgary is expecting double-digit highs again by Friday. Since Oct. 5 the daytime high has not been above 6°C.
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