The unusually mild temperatures this winter were more than an aberration. They are becoming part of the norm.
Canada had its warmest winter on record, with the mean temperature 3.9 C above normal, said Environment Canada climatologist Bob Whitewood. For the Prairies, it was the third warmest winter on record.
“We’re seeing a trend in wintertime temperatures,” Whitewood said.
“They are getting warmer. Not just in Canada, but globally temperatures are increasing.”
The trend toward warmer winters in Canada became noticeable in the 1970s and even more pronounced in the 1990s.
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The warming trend is most evident in the winter and particularly in more northerly parts of the country.
For the Canadian Prairies, the overall normal winter temperature is Ð12.6 C. The mean temperature for the region this winter was 5.3 C above the normal, but it still was not as mild as the winters of 1986-87 and 1991-92, Whitewood said.
For Jerry Myers of Grandview, Man., the mild weather made going outdoors more bearable, but it also led to freezing rain and icy roads. As well, skies tended to be overcast in his area.
“It’s been a very gloomy winter,” the farmer said. “It’s been warm, but we haven’t had a lot of sun. It’s been terrible that way.”
There were several days with hoar-frost in his area, which some people interpret as an omen that there will be a lot of moisture this spring. If that holds true, Myers said, farmers in the Grandview area could be confronted with “terribly wet” fields.
Although the Prairies did not have its warmest winter on record, temperatures were still mild, especially in January.
There were record breaking temperatures across most of Manitoba that month and records were also broken at a number of weather stations in Saskatchewan and one in Alberta.
“In Manitoba, every station except for two set an all-time record for the warmest January ever,” said Environment Canada spokesperson Dale Marciski of Winnipeg.
“And not even by small amounts. It was quite a bit in some cases. In Saskatchewan, there were a number of places that broke records, too.
In Alberta, there was only one station that broke a record for the overall warmest January, and that was at Lethbridge.”
Climatologists are still not sure why this winter was so mild, especially since no El Nino was involved.
“Not to have an El Nino and yet to still have such strong warming is quite an interesting phenomenon,” Marciski said.
Milder winters could be driven partly by natural trends, but global warming caused by human activity is also viewed as a likely contributor.
The mild temperatures were not the only striking aspect of this winter, Whitewood said. He noted that precipitation was 25 percent below normal on the Prairies and 40 to 60 percent below normal in some parts of central Alberta.
Climatologists often define winter as December, January and February.
