This year was one filled with wild weather.
Most notably, 2016 was marked by the devastating Fort McMurray wildfire.
The blaze started burning on May 1 and was not considered under control until July 5. Approximately 2,400 homes and buildings were destroyed as the fire burned approximately 590,000 hectares. It was the most expensive disaster in Canadian history.
Leading up to the fire, the year began very dry and warm, creating the arid conditions across the province.
“Looking back we had one of the strongest El NiĹ„o’s on record,” Kirk Tornedy, meteorologist for Environment Canada and Climate Change, said.
The 2016 El Nińo was on par with the one in 1997/1998, tied for the strongest on measurable record.
Western Canada was especially warm right after Christmas until May long weekend.
The meteorological winter, which is comprised of December, January and February, came together to be the eighth warmest on record since the beginning of recorded temperatures in the 1880s.
February clocked in as the fifth warmest February on record. March finished even higher, sitting at the third warmest on record and April settled in as the fourth warmest. Together these months combined for the warmest spring on record.
“It was notably warm and it was dry but not record-breaking dry,” Tornedy said. “Around May long weekend the tides turned a bit and it switched to being quite moist.”
May long marked the end of the El Nińo and ushered in the wet and unstable summer.
Although some may have thought this summer was a wet one, it had no notable record-breaking numbers. It finished around the middle of the pack in terms of amount of precipitation.
The summer season did see more hail than the province is used to seeing. On average, there are 74 hail events in Alberta per year. This year we finished the storm season with 144 events.
This may be due to a more stormy summer, or an increased ability to report and track hail events, due to technological improvements.
The storms themselves are hard to track, as there is no clear measurement as to what constitutes a thunderstorm.
The fall season ushered in another few months of weird weather. A wet and cold October was sandwiched between a notably warm September and November. The eleventh month finished as the fifth warmest on record.
December started with a cold snap, which saw record power use in some areas of the province. In St. Albert between Dec. 5 and Dec. 14, the cold snap saw a 7.8 per cent increase in power use across the city as temperatures dipped as low as -30 C.
Looking forward to next year, it is difficult to predict weather patterns. Tornedy said there is no strong driving force, such as this year’s El NiĹ„o, so there is little confidence in the models.
So far, things are shaping up to produce a very average spring. But Tornedy said that precipitation is one of the most difficult weather factors to predict and it is possible conditions will change before the spring.
Christmas Day is forecast to be a chilly one with the low dropping to -19 C and the high reaching only -16 C. Christmas Eve may see some snow, but no precipitation is predicted to fall on Christmas Day.
