Reading Time: 3 minutes To say that last year’s harvest season in Alberta was unusual would be putting it mildly. The exceptionally wet fall resulted in 967,569 unharvested acres reported to Agricultural Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) this past winter, representing millions of dollars in seed and inputs that have yet to be recouped. So the big question this spring […] Read more
Plant 2017: It’s all about making the best of a bad situation
It was never going to be good, but crop specialists say this seeding season may not be as bad as feared
Springtime can be the ‘right time’ for really big snowstorms
When a buildup of warm, moist air from the south collides with cold arctic air, your snowblower can get a real workout
Reading Time: 3 minutes With spring officially here, the last thing most people want to hear about is snow. But the way this winter and spring have been going, who knows? Springtime across the Prairies tends to bring some of the biggest snowfalls of the year. Several years ago I dug into this topic, but I figured it was time […] Read more
Warm weather wins out in this crazy up-and-down winter
The recipe was simple but unusual: Send in warm weather, then a big blast of cold, and repeat all winter long
Reading Time: 3 minutes From a climatological point of view, winter is now over. The 12-month year is broken into four equally long seasons, with winter covering December, January, and February. From a southern and central Alberta view, there is still one month to go. For most of the Canadian Prairies, winter starts in November and usually ends in March. In some […] Read more
The Big Wreck: One million unharvested acres
The financial hit will be huge and getting rid of those damaged crops could delay seeding and put this year’s crop at risk
Reading Time: 4 minutes [Updated: March 20, 2017] Ed Tollefson is worried he won’t be able to get 700 acres of snow-buried crop off his field before seeding this year. And the Valleyview-area farmer is not alone. Alberta producers have reported 967,569 unharvested acres to Agricultural Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) — a massive area that would have cost those […] Read more
Doubt about global warming isn’t coming from scientists
It’s not hard to create doubt about sound science — the tobacco industry proved that years ago
Reading Time: 3 minutes Several years ago, Weather Underground’s co-founder Jeff Masters wrote a blog about the manufactured doubt industry, how and when it was created, and how it now plays into the current global warming or climate change controversy. At the time I emailed Masters asking permission to use some of the information from his blog in an […] Read more
Dry winter is just what’s needed
Reading Time: < 1 minute The so-far dry winter in Alberta is raising hopes that farmers will be able to get onto their fields early in order to deal with more than one million acres of unharvested crops. As of Jan. 31, snowpack accumulations were generally below normal in most areas (save for southern Alberta, where little to no snow […] Read more
‘Change’ is the watchword in a warming world, says researcher
Longer summers and milder winters sound nice, but even the pluses come with some negatives
Reading Time: 3 minutes How will the Canadian cattle industry fare if global temperatures continue to rise? Count a reduced feed demand, a longer grazing season, and higher forage production among the benefits — but also expect more extreme weather, pests, and transport headaches, according to University of Manitoba research scientist Kim Ominski. “We know the future of our […] Read more
The top global weather stories of 2016 had a common theme
Whether you look at temperatures, ice at the poles, air quality, or the Fort Mac fires, the evidence of a warming planet is clear
Reading Time: 3 minutes It seems that a new list of the top global weather stories of 2016 comes out every day. So I thought I would go through some of these lists and pick the top stories that are shared by all of the lists. Of course, I might have a slight bias towards Canadian stories. I don’t think […] Read more
When it came to severe weather, Alberta (thankfully) was no. 2
We still had nearly twice as many ‘hail events’ as usual, but Manitoba was worse off for once
Reading Time: 3 minutes The new year comes with the usual list of Top 10 things about the previous year, and in the category of weather, this really appears to be the case. There are the Top 10 Prairie weather stories, Top 10 Canadian weather stories, and the Top 10 world weather stories (which often tend to be skewed […] Read more
ONE FOR THE BOOKS: Lessons learned, and a look ahead
‘Don’t wait for the perfect day’ is one of the key lessons from 2016, and sticking to rotations may be one for this year
Reading Time: 6 minutes Allison Ammeter didn’t see the inside of a combine in October. As harvest carried on across the province, Ammeter was left waiting and wondering when the rains would stop and whether she and husband Mike would finish harvest before the snow started flying. They didn’t. “We got not quite two-thirds done, which is fairly average […] Read more
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