Frigid February drags on

If you think this winter is dragging on you’d be right.

While there has been less snow than a typical winter the region has been locked into a long run of unusually low temperatures that are about seven degrees colder than the daily normal. And there’s no immediate sign of it backing off.

“The average daily February temperature for Prince Albert is -13.8 C and currently for this February it’s -20.3 C,” John Paul Cragg with Environment Canada told paNOW.

Cragg said in the regular wintertime battle for dominance between the arctic and pacific air masses, it’s the one from the North that’s winning out this year. In this case a high pressure system over Alberta is resulting in this seemingly endless run of cold days.

“It’s just pumping cold arctic air from North West Territories straight into Saskatchewan,” he said.

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While it’s not particularly uncommon to have many consecutive days of colder than usual weather Cragg said it is somewhat unusual to have so few days of fluctuating temperatures when the thermometer rises rapidly. Those conditions – as we saw briefly earlier in the week when the temperature reached zero – are brought on by the westerly pacific air mass which Cragg said has not featured as much as in a typical February.

“Now, as we get further into February it becomes more and more unusual [not to have big temperature swings] but the beginning of February is still a cold part of the year and cold arctic invasions during this period are not uncommon,” he said.

While all this cold may be prompting excessive thoughts of Mexico or Arizona it has actually been good news for highway crews.

“We’re all getting a little tired of the cold weather,” Steve Shaheen with the Ministry of Highways said. “But it’s actually not a bad thing for our crews.”

He said temperature fluctuations and the thaw-freeze cycles cause major challenges but there’s been little of that in our parts this year. The big challenge has been the sort of wind gusts this week.

“That poses a huge challenge as the snow sticks to the road surface and creates icy conditions and salting in those conditions is never ideal,” Shaheen said.

Shaheen said crews constantly monitor highways and the forecast weather conditions and tackle priority highways first. With blowing snow roads and shoulders are cleared to prevent finger drifting.

The short-term weather outlook continues to be good for highway crews but not so much for the rest of us. Environment Canada predicts it will be the middle of next week at least before we see some significant increase in temperatures.  

glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow