Anyone who has lived in Alberta for a few years or more knows full well that the May long weekend isn’t always all fun in the sun. In far too many years, Albertans have been blanketed with snow. Just two years ago in fact, the May long weekend was a white one with snowfall warnings in place for many areas of the province.
But this year should be perfect with all of the forecast models agreeing on lots of sunshine and temperatures that will be above the seasonal average. For Calgary, that’s 17 C, and from Saturday through the holiday Monday, temperatures will be in the low-to-mid-twenties.
An upper ridge will ensure we have abundant sunshine and warm temperatures with virtually no chance of rain.
If you’ll be avoiding the mayhem of the campgrounds this weekend, spending the time relaxing at home and possibly doing some gardening, it should be a perfect weekend to do that as well. But there is one little caveat and that is that there may be locations away from the heat island effect of the city where temperatures may dip close to, or even below, freezing. So make sure you have some bed sheets at the ready in case you need to cover any temperature-sensitive plants, and if you do wake up to frost, use your garden hose to wash it off as soon as possible. The water from your hose, although on the cool side, is obviously not below freezing and using it to wash any frost off your plants can save them.
Be sun smart, stay hydrated, enjoy responsibly and play safe this long weekend. After the winter we’ve just endured, we deserve this.
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