October recap – Firsts, lasts, and stats!

I should get “Firsts and Lasts” trademarked.

October brought a severely low amount of records – none! That means this is just all firsts and lasts, plus a few other things.

Firsts and Lasts:

  • Oct 8 was the last day of 2024 where the temperature reached to 20 or above.
  • Oct 12 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature reached below 0.
  • Oct 21 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature never reached above 10.
  • Oct 28 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature never reached above 5.

Next up, here some stats:

  • The total precipitation was 2 mm, which is abnormally dry.
  • The average temperature was 6, which is near normal.
  • The highest and lowest temperatures were 23 and -4.1.
  • The average humidity was 66%.
  • The highest wind and gusts were 34 and 60 km/h.
  • The average pressure was 1013.9 hPa.

I hope you enjoyed reading! ~3 weeks until the November recap!

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A big heat wave, 17 degrees, two heat records. Yep, that means snow tonight!

The Alberta clipper strikes again!

So, if I had to say, probably 1-3 cm. That seems about right. Almost all the forecasts say a snowfall total of about 2 centimetres, starting this evening and ending overnight. The actual reason for this is a tiny little trough in the jet stream, which is from an Alberta clipper that is a lot farther south than you would expect. The area of precipitation is very thin, with it starting at Jasper, travelling north-northeast to Edmonton (Hey, that’s us!) and then basically straight east way off to Manitoba.

For the amount of snow on the ground that we wake up to tomorrow morning, it will vary from 0.5 to 1.5 centimetres. It really depends on how much time the surface soil temperature is above 0.

One more thing: Recaps are coming tomorrow for October and the strong heat wave!

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November outlook time!

November, overall, will probably somewhat similar conditions to October, except slightly weaker heat waves and slightly stronger cold waves. Overall, very slightly above average temperatures.

For the first half, it’s short cold waves and short heat waves, with a pretty dominant heat wave coming up from the 6th to 10th. It looks like very changeable temperatures for the first 5 days, then the heat wave – which’ll probably get us at least one 10 degree day – and then a cooling trend towards the 12th. It does seem that we could see another quick heat wave after that for 1-3 days, but that’s still pretty uncertain.

For the entire first half, everything is very uncertain. I have forecasted that we’ll probably continue the pattern of quick alternating heat and cold waves, but there is a chance at a more extended cold wave. Maybe. Hard to tell. I do see The Weather Network plunging towards -4 for it’s last handful of days on the 14 day forecast, but I also see AccuWeather saying a heat wave right there. I do see AccuWeather’s temperature forecast going pretty far down for the last 7 days of the month, but usually I notice AccuWeather’s weeks of 3-4-5 are not the best and actually considerable worse than something like weeks 6 and 7. So, second half of November: We’ll have to wait and see.

One more thing, What I have noticed is the forecasts don’t seems to take El Niño/La Niña into account, because last winter the highs were overall ending up higher than what the forecasts say, but recently they’ve been lower. This does mean that even though Environment Canada may have been saying 15 degrees for Thursday, it is not unlikely that it’ll end up below 10.

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Snow is coming tonight!

Yes, that’s right.

Note: By tonight I meant tonight and tomorrow morning, because it’s more than just tonight.

For the snowfall total, it’s somewhere between 2 and 6 centimetres, with it most likely landing around 4. The snowfall is looking like it’ll start around midnight tonight with actually a risk of freezing rain, and maybe even some rain before that in the evening. It’s probably going to be very continuous snow all the way through sometime tomorrow morning. It’s probably going to get more and more scattered, before finally tapering off mid to late in the afternoon.

The rain, then possible freezing rain, then snow and temperatures below 0 will probably not be a very fun mixture of conditions tomorrow morning. So, watch out. It may be a little treacherous!

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Temperatures are taking a massive plunge into the negatives and snow totals into the positives tomorrow!

Conditions are NOT looking good for tomorrow morning! The classic trifecta of bad commute is about to arrive: Cold, wind, and snow. No, you didn’t read that incorrectly. Snow.

Let’s start off with the temperature, where the it’ll probably not rise more than a degree until Tuesday morning, starting when I post this. At the time of writing, we’re at about 6 degrees, but that is already starting to decrease, and we’re looking like a low of…”It depends.” What it depends on is how far you want to count “night” to last, because we may not see the rounded-to-the-nearest-degree temperature go up at all tomorrow in the day. So, we’ll just say it depends. This creates another complication of “what is day?” Yeah, we’re going to completely skip a low for tonight and a high for tomorrow, leaving us all the way at tomorrow night, with a gargantuan low of -5. (That lands us at 5 degrees below normal, which is considered “very cold” for this time of year)

Next up, wind. Breezy conditions are expected to start up overnight tonight, and persist until the early evening tomorrow, with winds of 20 km/h gusting to 45. Of course, the worst is right when we’re going to be going to school and work.

Finally, the moment that we’ve all been anticipating – Snow! Don’t worry, (but actually you really should) it’s only a light dusting. It looks like very light snow will begin around sunrise, and continue until the evening. Total amounts range from a few millimetres to a little over a centimetre, with the most likely amount being about half a centimetre. This is not good, because all that snow will accumulate on top of frozen puddles, meaning lots of slipping, sliding fun and catastrophes.

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Two more should-be-final 20 degree highs to start the work/school week

It’s a small heat wave, nothing too record-breaking. In fact, we probably will at most be 5 degrees away from any sort of highest temperature record. Even if it isn’t too big of a heat wave, I can still write about it!

The reason for this heat wave, is, very surprisingly a heat dome. That doesn’t usually happen at this time of year. The thing is, it’s staying far to the south; maybe only brushing Canada’s border a tiny bit. We’re only catching the edge of this system, and if you go all the way down to something like Lethbridge, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all have good chances at 25. Since we’re only getting the topmost affected areas of the blocking high, and it is bordered by cold waves on either side, it’s only going to actually be noticeably “hot” or “very hot” on Monday and Tuesday.

For the actual temperature values, Monday is probably a high of 21, though it could land as low as 19, or as high as 22. (that 19 is very unlikely, by the way) Tuesday is more like a 22, but it could be as low as 20, or as high as 25. If you’ve already packed your summer gear away, or you’re not a fan of the heat, then don’t worry about that 25. It is something like a 5-10% chance of that actually happening; that’s really low.

If you were wondering what is coming after this heat, then wonder no longer. We’re going to be quickly heading right back down to average and maybe even below average. The rest of the week is probably mid-to-low teens for highs, except for Friday, where it’s more like a “close to 10” Oh yes, and really good chances of frost Wednesday and Thursday night.

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Keep an eye out tonight for aurora!

A strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) left the sun around Tuesday afternoon, and it’s looking like it’ll create widespread aurora over the next 2 to 3 nights.

Here are some tables for the aurora:

Tonight

TimeForecasted probability of auroraForecasted cloudiness
Sunset – 9 pm70%Partly cloudy
9 pm – Midnight90%Partly cloudy
Midnight – 3 am50%Partly cloudy
3 am – 6am30%Partly cloudy
6 am – Sunrise30%Partly cloudy

Tomorrow night

TimeForecasted probability of auroraForecasted cloudiness
Sunset – 9 pm70%Mostly cloudy
9 pm – Midnight70%Partly cloudy
Midnight – 3 am50%Partly cloudy
3 am – 6am50%Mostly clear
6 am – Sunrise50%Mostly clear

It seems like the best chance of any will be tonight, specifically late in the evening. After midnight aurora is still very possible, but it’s definitely not as probable. Tomorrow night has lower chances for the evening but higher overnight. This means, paired with low cloudiness, that we might see the best aurora tomorrow night, even though there’s a lower overall chance of it.

If you want to know what to watch for if you’re really hoping to see some aurora, then consult the boxes below.

Links:

  1. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/aurora-dashboard-experimental
  2. https://www.aurorawatch.ca/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/
  3. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/ace-real-time-solar-wind

The first links tells you about some basic conditions.

At the top you have a panel that says “Space Weather Conditions”. Under “Latest Observed” if the G box says anything that isn’t none, that means there’s an >50% chance of aurora right now. If you scroll down a bit, there’s a panel that says “Where will the aurora be in the next few minutes?”. You’re going to want to look at the Northern Hemisphere section. Click the play button, and wait for it to load. Once it has played, you will be able to see where aurora has the highest chance of being right now. If it looks like we have yellow, orange, red, of green that could change or is changing to yellow, that means there is a good chance of aurora in the next little while. (~30 mins) Going down a little bit more, under “What is driving the aurora?” there is a box that says “Planetary K index” If you see the bars there going up, that means that the chance of aurora is increasing. If they’re going down, it’s decreasing. If the rightmost bar is extending beyond 4, that means the aurora is considered active for our area. Anything beyond 6 is considered very active.

The second link is much simpler. All you really need to know about it is that the percentage right at the top is the probability of aurora in Edmonton at this exact moment.

For the third link:

  • On the option that says a bunch of unnecessary stuff and then EPAMp in brackets, anything going up means aurora is more active.
  • On the magnetic field option, if the yellow bar is exceeding +/- 20, and the white and red bars are going above 20, the aurora is becoming more active.
  • Finally, on the second SWEPAM option, if the yellow bar is going above 800, and there is more instability than normal in the red bar, the aurora is also becoming more active.
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August and September recap: Firsts, lasts, and records

I would have done a recap for only August quite a while ago, but September was a little crowded, so here’s a 2-in-1.

Let’s start off with records. Firstly, we got absolutely ZERO records in August. Of course, that would be negative 0 if you’re Jason. In September, a handful of records were broken from the heat waves, amassing to a humidex record of 33 on the 2nd, max. temp of 32.1 on the 6th, max. low of 13.7 on the 7th, max. temp of 30.8 on the 8th, and max. low of 14.5 on the 25th.

For the firsts and lasts, I’ll write it down in the list below:

  • Aug 4 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature never reached above 25.
  • Aug 5 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature never reached above 20.
  • Aug 29 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature reached below 10.
  • Sep 3 was the last day of 2024 where the temperature never reached below 15.
  • Sep 8 was the last day of 2024 where the temperature reached to 30 or above.
  • Sep 12 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature never reached above 15.
  • Sep 21 was the first day of the second half of 2024 where the temperature reached below 5.
  • Sep 24 was the last day of 2024 where the temperature reached to 25 or above.
  • Sep 25 was the last day of 2024 where the temperature never reached below 10.

Well, hopefully I can do a recap for October not in December!

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Probable frost, a possible single-digit high, and even negatives! Tomorrow’s going to be exciting…

Yeah, it’s looking like tomorrow will be cold. I think our expected high is about 5 degrees below normal.

First and most importantly, that frost probability is looking pretty high, so I would advise you cover up your plants. Based on the current forecast, ~60% chance. But, of course, that is lower for higher-lying areas and higher for lower-lying areas.

For the actual temperatures, the high is 10 on the forecast, except AccuWeather is actually saying 9. That is interesting, because I’ve noticed that if AccuWeather suddenly changes by a degree or two for it’s high or low about 24 hours for it actually happens, then it’ll usually end up being that. Another similar thing I’ve noticed is that if Environment Canada makes a bold prediction that’s quite a bit different from the others, and that stays for a while, then it’ll probably happen as well. That is exactly what has happened with a -1 low tomorrow night. Both the others have been saying a BIG NO to a negative, but EnviroCan itself has been keeping -1 or something very similar on the forecast for about 3-5 days now.

If you were wondering what the reason for all this cold is, it’s a low moving from the Gulf of Alaska to the rocky mountains to bring a trough is the jet stream before quickly fizzling out. It is going to be alive for long enough for some cold temperatures, but not long enough for any sustainable cold wave.

Oh yes, and this cold we’re getting has actually lasted quite a while. Hmm… That could be big for a mid-October cold wave!

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October outlook: A warm and dry September repeat, or cold chaos? Maybe (and probably) both…

October is looking pretty changeable, as in the temperature will change a lot, and the forecast will change a lot. Since we’re heading into a weak La Niña, and the patterns aren’t being easily predictable, so I’ll wont be able to give you much more than a vague idea of what’s coming in the next month. Of course, take everything with a grain of salt, a bigger grain of salt the farther we venture in the forecast. Weather’s always changing unpredictably, especially this October.

We’re starting off in the short time frame without much uncertainty. It looks like Wednesday and Thursday will have highs near 10, so feels like in winds in the “very cold” range. It does seems like afterwards, we’ll get a handful of degrees above 20 in a heat wave mainly based on the 7th.

Everything after the next week, especially the second half of October, could really end up being anything. The overall pattern seems similar to recent times, with alternating short El Niño and La Niña patterns. For now, I’ll give you a table of possible dates for those.

DateTypeStrength (This can change a lot!)
3rdColdMedium – High
7thHeatMedium – High
10thColdLow
13thHeatMedium – High
16thColdCould be any
19thHeatLow
20thColdCould be any
22ndHeatVery hard to tell if it’ll happen
23rdColdVery hard to tell if it’ll happen
24thHeatVery hard to tell if it’ll happen
25thColdVery hard to tell if it’ll happen
26thHeatVery hard to tell if it’ll happen
31stColdCould be any

One period of importance here the 16th – 21st. This place has the possibility of becoming an extended cold wave. It’s very hard to say, but it might not be too unlikely. If it happens, it could bring significant snowfall!

I’ll update you with another post if the forecast ever gets a little more confident.

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