This past December was the 16th coldest ever recorded in the City of Grande Prairie. Several weather records were broken at the Grande Prairie Airport, including reaching a record minimum dew point for the month of minus 48.4 degrees recorded on December 27th.
Minimum windchill records were set on both December 26th and 27th at minus 50 and minus 56 respectively, and a record minimum high of minus 29.8 on the 26th. Record rainfall was also recorded on December 29th, with 1.9 millimetres of rainfall falling.
Environment Canada. Meteorologist Sara Hoffman says the frigid temperatures also reached a new low right after Christmas.
“One record low was set in terms of daily temperature, as on December 27th, the Grande Prairie area reached a temperature of minus 44.4 degrees Celsius, which is the coldest it’s ever been that day.”
Since December 14th, nine extreme cold warnings were issued for the Grande Prairie – Valleyview – Beaverlodge area. Grande Prairie was also reported to be the second-coldest place on Earth on December 27th at minus 44 degrees, trailing only Yakutsk, Russia.
“It was certainly an extremely cold month across the province and in Saskatchewan as well. For Grande Prairie, December of 2021 went down as the 16th coldest December in its history,” Hoffman explains. “Keep in mind that is with 86 years of data.”
It’s been a year of weather extremes in Grande Prairie, as the city has also seen record temperatures as hot as 41.5 degrees, set in June, as well as 95 kilometres per hour winds in January.