“Normal” Fall Expected After One of Alberta’s Hottest Summers Ever | The Canadian News

The summer of 2021 in Alberta was one of the record books.

The province battled a heat dome in late June, smoke from wildfires for much of August, and the quietest tornado season in history.

The fall season won’t be that exciting, but winter can be a different story as sea surface temperatures begin to shift from a neutral ENSO to La Niña state.

Hot and dry summer

Much of Alberta had a hot and dry summer. It was the warmest season on record for Calgary, Edmonton, Banff and Grande Prairie and the second warmest for Red Deer, Fort McMurray and Lloydminster.

“In terms of daily maximum temperature records, Alberta recorded 255 in June, 110 in July and 73 in August for a summer total of 438,” said Environment Canada decision support meteorologist Justin Shelley.

In terms of humidity, it was the driest summer on record for Edmonton and ranked in the top 10 driest summers for areas like Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Grande Prairie.

Calgary also had its second year with the most smoke on record, with 414 smoke hours on record as of Aug. 16.

The city’s smogiest year was 2018, when 450 hours of smoke were recorded.

Edmonton had its third year with the most smoke on record, with 83 smoke hours as of July 31, which is still a far cry from the record of 229 hours set in 2018.

Environment and Climate Change Canada said a “smoky hour” is when the Calgary International Airport weather station reports visibility of less than 10 kilometers due to smoke and only records that data from May through September.

“Smoke hours are relatively new, since about 2016, we’ve started looking for data on smoke conditions to help tell the story about wildfire smoke,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Alysa Pederson.

It was also an active hail and windstorm season in Alberta – the province had 31 more hail storms and 11 more wind events than normal.

But it was a different story when you look at the number of tornadoes.

Only two touchdowns were recorded; one near Cedrick on May 18 and one near Blackie on June 5. Both were classified as EF0 with winds between 105-137 km / h.

Environment Canada told Global News it was the quietest tornado season in Alberta, and the prairies as a whole, in nearly four decades.

The weather agency also noted that investigations are still ongoing with other possible tornado landings.

Fall and winter outlook

This year, the autumnal equinox lands on September 22 and marks the first day of the astronomical season. However, meteorologists analyze the seasons based on annual temperature trends.

Seasonal predictions for fall cover the months of September, October and November.

The predictions for the winter season cover the three coldest months of the year: December, January and February.

Looking at the fall as a whole in Alberta, temperatures are expected to remain around the normal mark.

Looking at the humidity predictions, the Rocky Mountains, northern and west-central Alberta could see a slightly wetter drop than normal.

Southern and east-central Alberta will likely see near-normal amounts of rain and snowfall during the fall months.

Although Alberta expects a fairly typical fall across much of the province, winter could be a bit more exciting.

Right now, equatorial sea surface temperatures are in an ENSO-neutral state over most of the Pacific Ocean, but we are likely to see a shift to La Niña in the coming months.

That could spell a cold, snowy winter for Alberta.

Last winter was also a La Niña season.