While the last couple of days have been chilly ones for the Tour of Alberta, there’s good news for the Peace region. This fall is expected to be a warm one, followed by a winter that will likely be less intense than the last few. Environment Canada Senior Climatologist David Phillips says we should return to warmer temperatures this weekend.
“You get those one days that remind us of the hoary season coming up in terms of the winter; those happen, but generally the flavour and the personality of the fall we think will be a little bit more on the wild side once we get through this week.”
This year’s El Niño in the Pacific Ocean is supposed to be a strong one, although it’s not guaranteed, Phillips says it could mean we’ll take less of a beating.
“Large El Niños like this, we find that winters are not quite as brutal and cruel in the Grande Prairie/Peace River area as they could normally be. When we look back over the last 75 years, we’ve had maybe seven super El Niños, strong El Niños.”
Of those 7, four in the area were warmer than normal, two were colder and one was seasonable. As for snow, one of those years saw more of the white stuff, four saw less, and two were in between.
Last year Grande Prairie saw 5.6 centimetres of snow on September 8th, but Phillips says other than the possibility of a frost, we should be seeing Indian summer temperatures of 17/18 degrees this weekend.