No doubt about it, while the southern hemisphere experiences a variety of heat related problems, including massive fires in Australia, Canada is having a truly Arctic winter.
In many cities across almost all of southern Canada, temperatures have often dipped to -20 celsius and below, and for several days at a time. If you add in the wind chill factor and you get Arctic conditions.
For example, the major western city of Winnipeg, Manitoba has long been labelled “winterpeg”, but it’s certainly deserved the nickname this year.
The city has had had 71 days of wind chills temperatures at -30 degrees Celsius or below. For 29 of those days the temperature and wind chill have been at -40, and one day in January it hit the equivalent of -51 celsius. In contrast, the Mars rover on January 7 reported the temperature on the surface of that planet was -29, in Winnipeg on January 7 it was -31 (and that’s not including the wind chill!)
The average actual temperature in Winnipeg from December to February has been -20 c.
Last night ,Wednesday, temperatures dropped to -34 with strong winds of up to 50km/h and wind chill equivalent at -46
Frost had penetrated more than 2 metres below ground and a few hundred residents have been without water for several days due to city pipes being frozen
The city has also had an unusually big snowfall this year at 127 cm since November, although that’s not a record. During the winter of 1996-96, there was 141 cm by the end of February. That was the same year as a massive “flood of the century” and also a huge one-day snowfall at the beginning of April.
There’s no immediate relief in sight. The forecast temperature for March 1, is -37 degrees.
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.