The holiday season is about traditions, and with Christmas and the holiday season just around the corner it’s time once again to do my traditional look at Christmas weather across the Prairies — in particular, a look back to see what the warmest and coldest Christmases were, and to see if there have ever been big Christmas snowstorms. I’ve shared this with you before, but at this time of the year I always have a secret hope or wish that there will be a big snowstorm over Christmas. I know a big storm at this time of the year would cause all sorts of problems and hardships, but deep down inside I guess I just wish I could be stuck at home for a few days. No pressure to go anywhere because you can’t, plenty of food available, family around you, and new presents under the tree. A perfect time to be forced to sit back and just relax — at least until you have to dig yourself out!
Read Also
Manitoba crops suffer drought signs
Lack of grain fill, short crops and premature ripening are starting to show up in Manitoba fields where little rain has fallen since the start of May.
For this look back, I have explored the weather data for the main reporting centres across all three Prairie provinces. I went back as far as the weather records go for each of the stations, including data from the late 1800s. Some people like to argue the older data for some reason are not seen as reliable and shouldn’t count. Sometimes I think it’s actually the opposite. Back then, people took weather just as seriously as some of us do today, if not more seriously, and they were often very meticulous about recording daily weather. Today it isn’t surprising to check out daily weather data for a major reporting centre only to discover that some of the days are missing data, usually because of a computer or sensor glitch that wasn’t caught.
The easiest way to show the weather records for the days around Christmas is in a table. The table below shows the maximum and minimum temperatures recorded in degrees Celsius, along with the maximum snowfall for Dec. 24, 25 and 26 for Winnipeg and Brandon in Manitoba; Regina and Saskatoon in Saskatchewan; and Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta.
If you look at the table you’ll see that if you are looking for a place to go in the Prairies to experience a really warm Christmas, Calgary would be the place for you. While all of the other centres have seen some nice warm Christmases, not one of the major centres comes close to Calgary’s record highs. The year 1999 was a really warm one across the entire Prairies, with record-warm temperatures being set in every major centre except Saskatoon that year.
If you want a chance at seeing some really cold weather during this period, you could pick pretty much any place, as all have seen Christmases colder than -35 C, although Winnipeg comes out the winner here, with an absolutely ridiculous temperature of -47.8 C on Christmas Eve in 1879!
Interestingly, when you examine the precipitation records for these three days, you’ll notice the Christmas period has been a relatively dry, storm-free period, but there are a couple of exceptions. Winnipeg did see a heavy dump of 30.5 cm of snow on Boxing Day back in 1916, but the record for biggest Christmas snowstorms has to go to Edmonton. Back in 1938, Edmonton recorded over 25 cm of snow on Christmas Eve and then a further 18 cm of snow on Christmas Day, for a total of 43 cm of snow! Christmas Eve in 1938 started off nice in Edmonton with temperatures climbing to around +4 C before the snow moved in. By Dec. 28 the temperature had plunged, with overnight lows falling into the low -40s. This same storm tracked southeastward across the Prairies bringing record one-day snowfalls to Saskatoon, Brandon and Winnipeg.
While I’m sure there have been plenty of stormy days near Christmas across the Prairies, very few really big storms have occurred. Looking at the present long-range forecast this year, we may have a chance at changing this, since the weather models are trying to bring in energy from the Pacific, beginning about a week before Christmas.
Whatever weather you do end up with, I hope it is what you wanted; if not, then remember the season and try to make the best of it!
