Climate change making Manitoba winters shorter, says report

Manitoba winters are getting shorter, according to a team of scientists from across North America who teamed up to examine a century of winter data.

The report, released by the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation, found there were two fewer weeks of winter over the past 100 years in the southern Prairies.

Days were often warmer, the report found, with five fewer days where the daily temperature went below -30 C.

It also found we can expect 17 fewer snow-covered days than we could 100 years ago.

The conclusion of the report found winters across northeastern North American forests are losing their cold and snow, with one to three fewer weeks of cold and the white stuff each year compared to a century ago.

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David Phillips, Environment and Climate Change Canada’s senior climatologist, says this winter shouldn’t be as difficult to bare for Manitobans.

“We aren’t cancelling winter but we think the flavour or personality of winter won’t be as harsh as last year,” he said.

“I think December will be a dry run for the rest of winter where you have moments where it’s cold and typically cold and all of a sudden you’ll have some thawing and it will warm up.”

The Prairie Climate Centre out of the University of Winnipeg has a Climate Atlas that allows people across the country to see how climate change will impact their own backyard.

According to the data, Winnipeg will go from about having two weeks of 30 C weather to seven-and-a-half weeks by 2080.

The data also shows that we will also go from seeing 12 days of -30 C temperatures to just one by 2080 and 79 days of -15 C winter days to just below 43 by 2080.

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