(Almost) eight degrees of separation

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This article was published 15/02/2024 (589 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The proof is in the numbers: Winnipeg is on track to have its warmest winter — by far — in a decade.

David Phillips, Environment and Climate Change Canada’s senior climatologist, said the average temperature was -6.9 C from December to Feb. 14, which is much higher than normal.

“The average temperature for the last 10 years, from December to the end of February, is -14.6 C, so – 6.9 C is almost eight degrees warmer,” Phillips said Thursday, noting for the weather agency, winter officially ends at the end of this month.

“When you think of winter, you think of Winnipeg. It has a reputation. We know it’s cold there but, by gosh, this is the closest I’ve ever come to saying winter has been cancelled in Winnipeg.”

Phillips said the coldest day was Jan. 18 when the temperature dropped to -30 C. Incredibly, it’s the only day this winter the mercury reached down to -30 C.

“You normally have 11 of those days,” he said.

“And days below -20 C — that’s the definition of a cold day — you have 40 days of them, on average, from November to mid-February, but you’ve only had 10 of those. Days below -10 C? You’ve had 48 of them when you normally would have 76 of them.”

Phillips said there’s another tell-tale sign something’s not normal: Winnipeg has had fewer days where the thermometer didn’t rise above freezing.

“You’ve had 57 all-freeze days, but you normally would have 85 of them,” he said. “It really has been a non-kind of winter there.

“It would be nearly impossible for Winnipeg to have had a milder winter than this year.”

As always, with temperatures extremes, there are winners and losers.

Yvonne Rideout, executive director of Snowmobilers of Manitoba, said most trails across southern Manitoba are closed.

“It’s such an unusual winter,” Rideout said. “It certainly puts a damper on the places to go around. We’re getting a lot of people looking at trailoring to the areas where trails are open.”

Rideout said the closest drive for snowmobilers to get to snow and groomed trails is the Interlake north of the Narrows, around Dauphin, or in the Russell area.

“Normally, city people would just have to drive to the Whiteshell. We’re telling riders — let’s hang on for next year.”

Collin Stone, owner of fishing company Red River Cats in Lockport, said while the Red River area there remains open to ice fishing, they test the ice every day.

“So far, it has been good. Fourteen inches is our minimum standard and right now we have 18 to 20 inches of ice, but last year we were close to 32 inches, even 36 inches.”

Stone said they’ve only had to close access to the river for two days this season and that was to make sure the access point at the shoreline wasn’t damaged by vehicles due to mucky conditions.

“The fishing itself has been really quite good,” he said. “Seven-hundred fish being caught a day is not uncommon.”

On the flip side, Shooters, the driving range and golf course on north Main Street, has been open several days in which golfers could tee up.

“We were open from Jan. 26 to Feb. 4 or 5 on the driving range. We’ve been able to have people golfing each month for 12 consecutive months — that’s unheard of,” said Shooters owner Guido Cerasani. “Everything is closed today, but a couple of mild days and we will be open again.”

He said normally, the season stops at the end of October and doesn’t start again until spring.

The warmer than normal weather recently forced the city to close its cross-country ski trails, outdoor skating rinks and toboggan slides.

“Our hope is to get some reopened this year, but we need some consistently colder temperatures for rinks and a fair bit more snow for hills and slides,” city spokeswoman Julie Dooley said.

“That said, we haven’t officially closed anything for the season yet.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca