Most of western Canada is in the midst of what Environment Canada is calling a “prolonged heat event,” responsible for “significantly above normal” temperatures.
Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Brian Proctor explains that the heat boils down to a number of factors, a “significant” amount of heat rising into the atmosphere, which has built over the southwestern U.S. through much of early summer, and we are now feeling that impact.
“Typically for this time of the year, normal for the Grande Prairie Airport would be 22 degrees for the daytime high and lows of about 10,” he says. “We’re seeing temperatures significantly above that, about 10 degrees, 11 degrees above those kinds of values.”
Proctor suggests that along with record breaking high temperatures in some places, including Grande Prairie, warm nighttime lows have also give the feeling that the heat never lets up.
“Importantly, we’re seeing these anomalously warm temperatures through the overnight period as well, and what that’s doing is really allowing that sort of heat to build up and we’re gradually seeing these temperatures popping up a bit more every day,” he says. “The one complicating fact for the Grande Prairie area is you’re getting brushed by these weak upper troughs in the flow of the atmosphere that are giving the potential for lightning as well which is really not good news when we think about what’s going on.”
According to Proctor, the unsettled weather could lead to severe thunderstorms, which also ratchets up the risk for wildfires.
“All that’s doing is increasing the potential for forest fire danger, and also pushing the humidity even higher which is making people even more uncomfortable.”
Some Grande Prairie residents might remember the unusually warm winter earlier this year. Proctor explains that the weather observed in January and February was mostly due to the above-average surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, brought on by El Niño phenomenon. How adds, however, that conditions have largely returned to being called “neutral.”
“The warm winter was a consequence of El Niño to a large degree and El Niño really started to wain in the second half of the winter, and we’re really back to sort of neutral conditions in terms of El Niño or La Niña,” he says.
Grande Prairie remains under a heat warning for much of the rest of the week, until July 24th when temperatures are forecasted to cool off to around 23 degrees.
