Winnipeg basking in unusually warm weather

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This article was published 04/10/2021 (1614 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The leaves may be changing colour and crunching underfoot, the days may be getting shorter and the nights stretching longer, but this year’s fall weather has been nothing short of, well, summery.

Families milled around Winnipeg’s parks, splayed out on picnic blankets, sat on patios and lounged on front stoops in tank tops Monday afternoon as another day of summer-style heat graced the first week of October.

Environment Canada meteorologist Natalie Hasell said Winnipeg temperatures have not quite reached record-breaking levels this fall, but the past several weeks have set a trend of longstanding warmer-than-usual weather with temperatures resting at or above 20 C.

“This is an ongoing trend,” she said. “It’s quite remarkable just how warm it has been, and now it’s October and it continues.”

Hasell said just two or three days of September were “somewhat near normal”; otherwise the entire month saw above-average and well-above-average temperatures.

“We’re just in this weird situation where the air masses we’re in and the wind flow that we’re in is leading to warmer-than-normal temperatures in southern Manitoba,” said Hasell, adding a ridge of air centred in the United States has extended into the southern part of the province.

While warm weather is a bonus for Manitobans looking to soak up the sun as long as possible, the dry conditions that have persisted throughout the year have given way to more fires in Saskatchewan, bringing smoke into Winnipeg skies.

Further north in the province, temperatures are more seasonal and cooler, Hasell said. The warm front is expected to shift east and allow room for more seasonal weather later in the month, though Hasell noted some models suggest warmer-than-usual weather could persist through the month.

Retired Environment Canada meteorologist Rob Paola — who keeps up a social media account and website dedicated to weather observations — noticed the trend of warm weather this month forms a rare streak seen only a handful of times in the last century.

In Winnipeg weather records dating back to 1872, Paola said only six Octobers have seen a weeklong streak of temperatures above 20 C.

“It’s not common at all,” Paola said, noting a few days of warm weather is expected for October. “But getting seven days in a row? That’s unusual and getting into the rare territory.”

Meteorologists predict the summery temperatures will stick around southern Manitoba until Friday, meaning Winnipeggers could see an eight-day run of warm October weather, and the city’s seventh hot streak since the late 1800s.

Paola said the last hot streak was a decade ago, from Oct. 4 to 11, 2011. The all-time heat-streak record, however, was set in 1963, during the warmest October on record for the city.

Though this year has been marked by hot and dry conditions, meteorologists suggest things will likely return to seasonal temperatures next week.

“It doesn’t look like it’s going to be extending through the entire month at this point,” said Paola. “It’s a great week for getting those last golf games in, bike rides, gardening, all those wonderful activities you can do while we still have this last beautiful stretch of weather.”

 

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers