City's worst winter since 1898 - Winnipeg Free Press
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
By: Randy Turner
Posted: 04/5/2014 2:10 AM | Comments:
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Dwarfed by piles of snow left over from winter, pedestrians make their way along Palmerston Avenue recently. Photo Store
Congratulations, Winnipeggers, you are in the midst of surviving the worst winter on record since 1898.
That's right, 1898, when the Spanish-American War was raging and the Montreal Victorias won their fourth-straight Stanley Cup. The year of the first recorded motor-vehicle fatality and the year Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium.
Yeah, that long.
"Nobody alive can say they've had it colder in Winnipeg," Dave Phillips, the national meteorologist with Environment Canada, said Friday. "The story about this winter was the relentlessness of it. There was really no break. It was from the get-go. Even October was a half-degree colder than normal.
"Nobody had the look and feel of winter more than Winnipeg," he said. "So if we award the prize for citizens who've endured the toughest winter, I think you guys would win gold. I'm not sure you want to brag about misery, but... "
According to Phillips, the average temperature in December was -20.5 C, followed by January (-20.0 C) and February (-19.9 C). Then came March, which averaged -12.5 C, almost seven degrees colder than average.
That's what sent Phillips scouring the record books of Winnipeg temperatures dating back to the 1870s. He calculated the average temperature during the past four months at -18.3 C. In 1898, the average Winnipeg temperature from December to March was -18.4 C.
Even more impressive, said Phillips, was the severity of a 2014 winter in the age of global warming.
"It's hard to break a cold-weather record nowadays," he said. "When you compare Winnipeg to 1898, think about it -- there was only about 40,000 people. No cars. No heavy industry. No pavement. Not a lot of burning going on. So when you think you can break a record this year with all the urbanized effect, what they talk about in terms of climate change, it really is quite remarkable."
But wait, there's more. The average number of days the temperature plummets to -30 C is 12 in Winnipeg. This year, "there were 30 of those suckers," Phillips said.
"So not only was it persistent, but it was intensely cold," he said.
So while all the newsworthy issues associated with this winter -- blizzards, potholes, frozen water pipes -- have dominated the headlines, Phillips noted there's another cost: heating.
"Just to keep comfortable, you have to burn about 17 per cent more heating fuel because of the demands of the cold," he said. "So you can grin and bear it, but it takes money out of your pocket, too."
Not cold enough for you? Then consider that despite the length and depth of cold this winter, the snowfall now stands at 155 centimetres, well above the average of 100 cm.
One plus of the coldest winter in more than a century is it probably has a positive effect on modest flood forecasts. Why? "It's been so cold it's probably the driest snow that's ever existed in the city," Phillips said.
But just remember that despite temperatures climbing to near zero Friday, April can also be cruel. In fact, 12 per cent of snowfall, on average, comes after April 1.
"You don't write the obituary on winter unless it's late May," Phillips said. "It's not going to happen overnight. You're not going from slush to sweat.
"Winter is a bully at this time of year. It's hard to get rid of it."
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 5, 2014 A15