If January was an indication of weather for the rest of 2024, it is going to be one wild year! It started off warm. Then winter showed up in full force, bringing record-breaking cold weather, especially over the western half of the Prairies. Luckily it didn’t last that long as we saw an about-face during […] Read more
Tag Archives Snow — page 3
Sask. irrigators keep their eyes on water supply
Levels at Lake Diefenbaker were lower than usual going into winter but still significant; province’s snow cover also low
MEDICINE HAT — River flow, low mountain snowpack and reservoirs struggling to fill in southern Alberta haven’t escaped the attention of irrigators in Saskatchewan as the traditional wet spring becomes critical. Mountain snowpack levels across Alberta’s Eastern Slopes as well as those in Montana that feed into the St. Mary and Milk rivers are well […] Read more
Prairie water users watch mountain snowpack
Alberta officials say the region’s moisture shortage remains dire but stress the situation could easily turn itself around
MEDICINE HAT — The best greeting for farmers attending last week’s Irrigation Production Conference was the dump of snow outside the Agri-Food Hub and Trade Centre in Lethbridge. Inside, the need for that type of precipitation was laid bare in order to avoid a water shortage this year. The numbers tell the tale as to […] Read more
VIDEO: Alberta ag minister urges water conservation
The province establishes a drought command team to work on an emergency plan amidst the continuing drought threat
MEDICINE HAT — Alberta weather has faced dramatic swings recently, from record high temperatures in December to lows in January not seen in decades, but the threat of a devastating drought continues along the same trajectory. Snowpack reporting stations along Alberta’s Eastern Slopes and from the headwaters of rivers that flow into the province from […] Read more
VIDEO: Alta. plans for water shortages
UPDATED – Video added to story January 16, 2024 – 1515 CST – MEDICINE HAT — An early January snowfall across the Prairies brought slight relief to dry conditions following one of the warmest, driest Decembers on record in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but drought concerns remain. Alberta is moving into high gear to co-ordinate agricultural, […] Read more
El Nino does strange things with prairie winter weather this year
WINNIPEG — The weather in December, as many Canadians noticed, was abnormal. As an example from the Prairies, the average daily high in Saskatoon was 0.5 C for the first three weeks of the month. That’s eight degrees warmer than the normal daily high for the month of December. Barrie Bonsal, a research scientist and […] Read more
Record warmth dominates 2023 weather
The analysis of global temperatures for November have come out, and it was another record warm month for the planet. The different agencies that analyze global temperatures rated November 2023 as the warmest on record, and by a large margin. Historically, the warmest El Niño temperatures occur during the second El Niño year, which would […] Read more
Alberta requests options for dealing with drought
Alberta is preparing for possible water shortages in southern rivers that feed its irrigation network and is asking for proposals to help deal with the situation. “A key element of this is the development of water sharing agreements, whereby holders of large water licences work together to agree on how much less water each will […] Read more
Precipitation comes in all shapes and sizes
From gentle drizzles to heavy snowfall, precipitation comes in various forms. In clouds that are above 0 C, water vapour condenses onto condensation nuclei, forming cloud droplets. These collide and coalesce into larger and larger droplets until they get too heavy for the prevailing updraft to keep them in the air. Then they fall as […] Read more
Taking a deep dive into snowfall events
There are different ways to measure how much snow falls, whether it be the amount that falls in one day or one 24-hour period. We can also measure snowfall a third way — by looking at what I call a snow event, when we record snowfall amounts on two or more consecutive days. This can […] Read more
