Is this spring normal?

[broadfieldpoint]

I have heard some say...that this is what is "supposed" to be like in the old days.....just wondering....seems like it is a little unusual to have this much snow this late.

[FoxKing]

I think its a bit unusual...but having grown up in Michigan, I've come to accept that every year is different. Just watch, next year will be the opposite and we won't have any snow at all by that time.

[TheClash]

a little bit more snow this year down here this late than "usual"...however it is not unusual at all to get a big dump or two of snow in alberta in april...

[Mish]

Like Clash said...the amount of snow is unusual, but we always get a couple dumps of snow before spring truly gets here.

[DAVE]

these last 2 winters are how i remember winters here growing up snow from november to april hope it stays this way

[Rust]

I think that this is worse then its been all winter.... LOL but hey its alberta! I have thought that the last few yrs there has not been as much snow as we used to get around the house, but I have heard that there is a lot in the Hills.

[chuck0039]

expect the unexpected. Thats what i come to realize living in Alberta.. and don't trust the weather people haha they are around 50 % percent.

[Bobby B.]

Average highs for this time of the year is 14-15C so we have definitely been below the average. This is predicted to change over the next few days. However, Alberta weather has always been less predictable than most due to the Rockies to the west and the Arctic to the north.

Bobby B.

[rae61]

I know that we can get snow at anytime here in Calgary. I think it's not the snow or even the cold temps but the length this has gone on for. It's been 7 straight days of snow with one or two more to come. This is Very unusual for this late in April to string that many days together. We have yet to have a rain here. We have had more snow in April than we did in all the three months of winter, I guess payback is a BI##H!

[TheClash]

granted i am not overly old....but this is a winter of my youth........i can easily remember snow upon snow for days....and then a switch is thrown and it is 12 degrees outside. i think the last 4 or 5 years have spoiled us down south and we have forgotten how winters here can be. as for northern ab. i have no idea what winters or springs are like there so i can't speak to that...

[sjd]

Yes, I saw on the news earlier this year that this would be the coldest, snowiest winter for 15 years, based on "La Nina" some currents in the Pacific Ocean that for reasons I do not quite understand make things cold for a year (look forward to a crappy summer too!). Then things flip into a El Nino - the warmer than average one.

Perhaps someone else can explain better!

[TheClash]

both have to do with deep water temperatures, ocean currents and winds...all these effect global weather conditions in different ways. great source here: http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/elnino/whatis.html

Just as you finish saying "That should be the last snow of the year", another big dump comes rushing in here in Calgary. The odd part of this past week is this hit of winter had nothing springlike about it. It was a cold, dry, continuous snow. Just like we have in January. I expect more snow this spring, but I hope the -22 windchills stay away this time, and it's 15 degrees the next day, and snow is gone in a hour.

[rugatika]

Originally Posted by TheClash

both have to do with deep water temperatures, ocean currents and winds...all these effect global weather conditions in different ways. great source here: http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/elnino/whatis.html

Global warming is caused by a decrease in pirates. There was a surge in the number of pirates this year which in turn caused a decrease in temperature. All that El nina luft balloons is a load of crap fed to us by aliens trying to take us over. The real truth lies in pirate numbers. Just look at this chart.

[Grizzly Adams]

Ah, I remember it well. Apr. 22, 198? The wife and I packed up the Bighorn river for a few days, to hunt some Grizz. It was bright and sunny, when we unloaded on the Crescent Falls road and we had a nice ride to a campsite, a few miles up river. We had a small wall tent with no stove. The next day was decent, but as we made it back to camp, it started to snow a little. No problem. It snowed lightly all that night and the next day. Still no problem. Spent the day in camp. The next day, April 22, it was still snowing and we decided to scoot. When we got back to the truck it was a raging blizzard with 6 to 8 in. of snow on the ground. No 4x4, but we barely made it back to the highway. It was one hell of a trip, but we made it back to the Condor service station and left our rig, with the horses in it , parked for the next three days. One of the neighbors, fed and watered them. We spent the time at my parents farm. When we finally made it down H 2, the ditches were full of abandoned vehicles and there were 4' high snowdrifts in our yard. What we just had, was nothing.

Unusually fluffy snow, spring snow is normally wet and destroys lots of shrubs and trees. Did anyone notice how many record lows were set accross Alberta last week? Some were from the early 1900's, i only caught the tail end of the news story but it looks like a few were reset.

[Molson]

So how much snow did you guys get East of Edmonton?

Thanks for any reports.

[rugatika]

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/records_in_bc

Here's a list of all the new records set in BC for this spring. Abnormally low sunspot activity is the suspected cause along with the la nina thing. Usually we should be in an upswing of sunspot activity right now, but there have been none spotted for several months now and people are starting to wonder if the sun is going into a dorman cycle of sunspots that could lead to a modern ice age.

Just some food for thought.

[mud slug]

heck its not may long weekend yet, we can still get snow and frost untill june.

[TreeGuy]

Ughhhh. I dread this time of the year. Never count out a pirate-related dump of snow in Calgary until June 1. We had one last year at the end of May long.

Hit the answering machine in the morning when I got in and it said, "You have 37 new messages"! I erased most of 'em!

We had a brutal tree-smasher in the spring of '96ish. 95% of the UofC's stuff was damaged and I ran a 6 man crew for 58 days straight. Brutal!

Tree