By Kevin Ma
St. Albert's warm winter and early spring could spell trouble for local birds, plants, and farmers, say experts.
Temperatures in St. Albert hit 21.5 C last weekend, with more summer-like weather expected later this week.
"It's been a warm winter," said Environment Canada meteorologist Dan Kulak, who noted that March was about 6.5 degrees warmer than average, "which is a huge amount."
NASA reports that February also smashed global temperature records, being some 1.35 C above the 1951-1980 global average for that month, making it the warmest seasonably adjusted month on record. Climate researchers generally agree that most of this warmth is due to anthropogenic climate change rather than El Niño.
Environment Canada climatologist David Phillips that the Edmonton region was looking at 22 C weather this Friday.
"Twenty-two degrees on Friday! Come on, the normal high should be 8 C!"
All that warmth caused spring to arrive exceptionally early in the Edmonton region, reported University of Alberta plant ecologist Elisabeth Beaubien, who co-ordinates the Alberta PlantWatch program. Male aspen trees (used by PlantWatch as an indicator of spring) were spotted shedding pollen around Edmonton as early as March 27 – two days earlier than last year, and about 16 earlier than average.
This early bloom moves up the timetables for insect populations, which could be bad news for birds that time their migrations to coincide with peak bug numbers, Beaubien said.
"If we get some frost in the next couple of weeks, we're going to have some pretty damaged plants," she noted – Fort McMurray had no pollen shed from its poplars in the last two springs as their catkins all froze, for example.
The early spring could give gardeners an early start on their plots, but it could also mean more bugs, Beaubien said.
André Montpetit of Sturgeon Valley Fertilizer said the weather has made shipping last year's crop a lot easier, as drivers are hauling grain across dry dirt instead of the usual mud. The warmth will also make it easier for farmers to prepare their equipment for this year's planting.
But most farmers will hold off on planting until early next month as usual, he continued. The ground is still too cold for seeds to germinate, so planting now means your seed is just sitting around for weeks waiting to get attacked by bugs, birds, and disease.
Kulak said the last three months have also been fairly dry, with just 14.1 millimetres of precipitation in around Edmonton in March (4.6 less than average), 8.2 mm in February (about half the average), and 9.5 in January (12.5 mm below average).
Alberta Agriculture reports that most of Sturgeon County was at a three-to-12 year low for winter precipitation, with parts of the province at one in 25-to-50 year lows.
There wasn't a lot of snow this winter, and the runoff has been pretty much nil, Montpetit said. Unless this region gets several inches of precipitation between now and the third week of May (when most crops are expected to germinate), that could mean trouble for this year's harvest.
"There's never been a crop failure in the beginning of April, but man, we're sure setting up for one!"
