The month of February has been unusually cold across most of the Prairie provinces, especially over the past week.
A persistent weather pattern with a strong and low-riding Arctic polar vortex has allowed frigid air to sit over most of the country, prompting frequent, and widespread extreme cold warnings.
As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, areas east of Calgary including Strathmore, Brooks, Drumheller, and Medicine Hat, as well as Red Deer and Edmonton to the north and Lethbridge in the south were all under an extreme cold warning.
Airdrie, Cochrane, Okotoks and Calgary were not under the warning.
According to the Environment and Climate Change Canada, “Extreme cold warnings are issued when very cold temperatures or wind chill creates an elevated risk to health such as frost bite and hypothermia.”
A dramatic improvement is about to occur with a complete pattern reversal introducing unusually warm temperatures for many of the same locations that have been dealing with extreme cold.
A strong ridge of high pressure from the Pacific basin is edging in along the western coast from California through to British Columbia at the same time the Arctic polar vortex weakens and tracks north and east into the northern Atlantic basin.
Locally, this will bring a rapid increase in both daily maximum and minimum temperatures.
From Wednesday to Thursday in Calgary the daytime highs will jump 18 degrees and, by the end of the weekend, the daytime highs will sit close to 10 C with overnight lows around the freezing mark.
Freeze-thaw cycles are notoriously hard on certain types of infrastructure including water mains and residential plumbing pipes.
Rapid warmups over snow-covered areas will accelerate melting, often resulting in an increase in leaky roofs, and water pooling due to the inability of certain surfaces to absorb water at the same pace.
Calgary can expect warm westerly winds as early as Wednesday night with ample amounts of sunshine likely over the next week.
