Another month has come and gone and the weather was anything but perfect across the Prairies in April. As is usual near the start of a new month, we’ll take a little time to look back at April’s weather and then peer ahead to see what the next month or two might hold in store.
I am one of the first people that will defend Environment Canada because it has to do a lot of work with very little in the way of resources. Over the years, when I look back at the monthly weather, I traditionally used data from Environment Canada for the major sites across the Prairies. I knew the data were good and that I could trust them. Lately however, it is looking more and more like the cuts at Environment Canada are really taking a toll. Keeping in mind that this is Canada’s official website for weather data, I went to collect the monthly weather summary for six main cities across the Canadian Prairies and found that not one of the cities had a complete set of data for April. Most of these sites were missing between two and five days of data and one site (Regina) was missing eight days. It makes it kind of tough to figure out the average monthly temperatures and total precipitation when upwards of 25 per cent of the data points are missing.
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For the stations missing a few days I did check back to see if any rain or snow was reported on the missing days, and came to the conclusion that the precipitation amounts I have will be fairly accurate. For the temperature, I extrapolated data to fit into the missing days from the weather that was reported before and after the missing data, and then recalculated the average temperature for the month. While this will not be exact, it should come pretty close.
Temperature
That said, here is how April’s weather shook out over the Prairies. Starting in the west, Alberta saw temperatures in April that were well below average. Both Edmonton and Calgary saw temperatures between 3 C and 4 C below their long-term averages. Saskatchewan didn’t fare much better, at least in Saskatoon. This station reported a mean monthly temperature for April that was nearly 2 C below average. This trend continued into western Manitoba, with the Brandon region also reporting an average temperature that was 2 C below average.
Things then warmed up over the eastern part of southern Manitoba. Thanks to same nice mild air during the last week of the month, Winnipeg saw a mean monthly temperature that actually came in right around average.
Precipitation
Precipitation in April followed a similar pattern to that in March. Over Alberta, southern regions were hit with several dumps of snow that brought well-above-average amounts of precipitation to that region. Further north in Edmonton it was drier, as this region came in a little bit below average. In Saskatchewan the region around Saskatoon was dry once again, with only a millimetre or two of precipitation recorded. Finally in Manitoba, thanks to a late-month storm that brought heavy snows to western and central regions, along with steady rains to southern and eastern regions, it appears that pretty much all areas had above-average precipitation. Western Manitoba can lay claim to being the wettest spot across the Prairies in April, with a large portion seeing 200 per cent of normal.
Summing up April’s weather for Alberta, “cold” would be the main word, with wet conditions in the south and average conditions in the north. Looking back at the forecasts for April, I think Environment Canada called it best as it did a pretty good job of predicting the temperatures and had called for near-to above-average precipitation.
Forecasts
The big question is whether this cold spring weather will continue or will summer arrive early? According to theOld Farmers Almanac,May will see near-average temperatures with near to slightly below-average precipitation. TheCanadian Farmers Almanacis calling for near-average temperatures to start, with a warm end to the month. Precipitation looks like it will be near-to above average as they mention unsettled conditions several times.
EC is forecasting the cool and wet conditions to continue over central and northern regions of Alberta, with near-to below-average rainfall in the south.
Finally, my forecast is leaning towards EC’s long-range forecasts. The medium-range models are not showing any big warm-ups over the next two weeks and the pattern continues to be active with plenty of storm systems around. All and all, not the best May outlook. Let’s hope that theOld Farmers Almanacis the one’s that gets it right!
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SummingupApril’sweatherforAlberta,“cold”wouldbethemainword.
