I’m back on the weather blog! Here’s a special post for the top 10 weather stories of 2024.
10. Early April heat
Around the start of April we had a quick heat spell, and we managed to get a very early first 20 degree high on April 2nd. This also came with 4 positive lows! It was probably a very quickly moving system, because only a few days before and after the 20 degree high the temperature was actually a little below average. The typical first 20 degrees happens around the end of April.
9. June rainstorm
Rain poured down hard on June 3rd, 2024, when we had 30.7 mm of rain in just one day. It happens that on that day in 1888 we got a slightly stronger rainstorm, so we didn’t get a record, but we were close!
8. Partial solar eclipse
On April 8th, 2024, North America got a total solar eclipse. Here in Edmonton, we had only a partial eclipse, but it was still nice to watch. (If you had eclipse glasses or an an eclipse viewer)
7. Weird smoke stuff
Usually May and June are pretty bad months for smoke, but in 2024 we actually had very good air quality in these two months, except for about 3 days in May. It was probably the best smoke conditions in any Edmontonian June for a long time, if not ever. It highly contrasted 2023, which had a exceptionally harsh wildfire season. To make for these clear conditions, we did get some big blasts of smoke in July and August, and that definitely took a lot of people by surprise, knowing it was coming from no smoke for over a whole summer month.
6. September heat wave
September kicked off with a massive blocking high that stayed around for days on end. We had five whole days of 30 degrees in September, which as far as I know is the most we’ve ever had. In the rest of September, we had very warm temperatures all the way through, with 4 distinct heat waves. We also had very dry conditions, which was quite a change the 69.5 mm in August.
5. Lots of aurora
March through October last year brought insane amounts of aurora, to the point where in the usually least active month of the year, we got more auroral events than we’ve ever had in the most active month of the year. Plus, in May, we had the strongest aurora storm in many many years on the 11th – 12th. If you want some stats, 2023 had Aurora Watch issue 24 alerts, and 2024 had 53. To make it even more extraordinary, 2023 already had significantly above normal solar activity.
4. February snow and cold
In late February, after a very mild and dry month, we very suddenly snapped to cold temperatures, and 14 cm of heavy snow in just one single night. Just 12 hours of snow amounted to 68% of the total precipitation of the entire month! After the snow, highs were around -15 for about the next 10 days.
3. November cold wave
Out of everything on this list, this one is the most recent. We managed to have a very prolific low block everything that try to stop it for about two weeks. In that time, we got cold, but not super cold temperatures, and an overall lowest temperature of -25. Of course, two days after that -25 we were suddenly at 7.1! An interesting thing with this cold wave is that we got quite a bit of precipitation, with the most snow in one day for all of 2024 on the 23rd, which ended up being the most precipitation on any November day in >20 years, and also 8 whole days with a measurable precipitation amount.
2. January cold wave
This was the main cold event of 2024, when temperatures professionally dived to -37.7 with a wind chill of -45, which occurred on January 14th, and a total below average streak of over 3 weeks. I can remember this happened when the polar vortex absolutely smashed the prairies to pieces with all this cold by basically temporarily moving to Canada from Siberia. What makes it even more crazy is that pretty much all of the previous November and December was chalk-full of positive highs, which had made the warmest November and December ever for Edmonton.
1. July heat waves
The number 1 weather event of 2024! Here it is:
After a quite cool and rainy June, the weather noticed it was summer and rocketed the temperatures way beyond what records had previously set. The highest temperature was 36.2 degrees, and a humidex of 39. (Which actually happened two times, 11 days apart) We had 11 total days of 30 degrees in July, which devastated many farms and is the main reason that the smoke came back. We broke a total of 14 heat records over the month, with 6 for the highest temperature, and 8 for the highest low.
Well, this is the end of list! I hope you enjoyed.