If it feels like winter has finally arrived, just wait a few days.
According to Environment Canada’s senior climatologist Dave Phillips, the last several days of frigid temperatures is just a blip in what has been and will continue to be a very mild winter.
Prior to Saturday, in fact, Yorkton had only had five days where the low had dipped into the minus-20s compared to 22 in a normal year, Phillips said.
“You’ve had a few teasers, but unlike other years, where there’s no El Niño effect, the cold periods don’t last months, they last days, maybe a week and then you’re into something that’s less brutal, less numbing,” Phillips said.
El Niño is an irregularly periodical warming of the sea surface temperatures of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, which has a global impact on atmospheric conditions, including on Yorkton.
“We think El Niño is clearly the weather-maker and when you look at it historically in Yorkton, El Niño winters are generally warmer and drier,” Phillips said.
Phillips crunched the numbers and they show just how mild it has been.
In December the average temperature was -8.8 compared to -14.1 in a normal winter, a difference of 5.4 degrees. Similiarly, November was more than six degrees warmer.
It is not record-breaking, however. Phillips pointed out that December 2011 was actually slightly warmer than December 2015. To really appreciate how mild it has been, though, Phillips says you have to look longer term.
“If you look at October, November and December, the average temperature in Yorkton was minus-1.4. Normal would be minus-5.6, so it represents the warmest October-November-December in 63 years, so you’re not imagining it,” he said. “It was warmer back in 1953 in October-November-December, but it hasn’t been since then.
“It’s not record, it’s hard to break a record in Yorkton because your records go back at least until 1941 at the present station, but maybe even back to the 1800s at older stations.”
Depending on perspective, a mild winter can be good or bad.
“Ice fishers, snowmobilers, people who embrace winter aren’t so happy, but let’s face it, we’re not all ice fishers and snowmobilers and we’re saving money on our home heating bills, commuting is easier, it’s more comfortable, insurers are happier, maybe farmers can do things around the farm where it doesn’t cost them [as much] to keep their livestock comfortable and healthy, so that helps,” Phillips said.
“And it generally means winter is shorter. Don’t think, like so many Canadians, that there’s an allotment of miserable days, that if you gain it at the beginning you lose it at the end. No, no, no, it doesn’t work that way.”
Of greater concern, perhaps, is a lack of snowfall, which Phillips said is definitely down.
Again, though, he said looking at the bigger picture is instructive, such as having twice as much precipitation in October than most years.
“When I look at precipitation since September, October-November-December is up a bit,” he said. “It’s not a drought, and that’s water in the bank, of course, for growers. It also means, you don’t generally have a flood season. That can turn on you and I sometimes regret telling people that, but generally speaking if you look at the past, the precipitation is not there, the snow cover generally comes and goes, it’s not that deep, then you don’t end up with standing water come seeding time so that’s to your advantage.”
As for the rest of the winter, Phillips believes it is going to be more of the same. Of seven large El Niños since 1950, six have led to milder drier winters in Yorkton.
“It tells you you wouldn’t bet the family farm on it, because you could go broke, but you could bet a few loonies on it because the past is a guide to the future and we see these things occurring, these tropical breezes do have an influence on the prairies, and this one couldn’t have missed because it was so extensive and it’s still there, it’s not dead in the water, but it’s weakening a little bit, but it’s still going to affect the weather for the rest of the winter.
“When you get El Niño, it’s not a crapshoot any more. It tends to give you a little more certainty assuring that the season’s going to unfold as we think it has. This is exactly what we said the winter would be so far, it could turn, but I think even as I look at these numbers, and I look at November and December and January to date, it’s almost hard to imagine this not ending as one of the more milder winters on record.”
