 | E-mail this story |  | Write letter to editor |  | Order a classified ad |  Print this page |
| | E-mail this story | | Write letter to editor | | Order a classified ad | Print this page |
|
Yk's wacky weather
Mike W. Bryant
"I walk to work so when it's mild like this, of course I'm going to like it when it's not -40 below," said life-long resident Jeanette Goldney. Mild winters aside, Goldney said it does make her wonder if all is right in the weather-world. "It does but...," she said before once again pondering her pleasant winter walks to work. Meteorologist Yvonne Bilan-Wallace said the weather had definitely been off-kilter the last two years or so, but there may be more at work than just global warming - although it is believed to be a factor. "The weather changes from year-to-year,"said Bilan-Wallace, who works for the Arctic Weather Centre in Edmonton. "It doesn't mean that you're heading into an ice age because you've had two rotten years in a row. Inland climates have extreme variability from one year to the next." She said past records show blocks of years with alternating hot summers/cold winters and the reverse going back more than 60 years. "You always get back into that same old argument, what is variability over short and long cycles?" she said. "And how does climate change work with that. If there was a simple answer, we wouldn't be having these conversations." The bad news-good news - depending on how you look at it - is that long range forecasts indicate another mild winter followed by a cool spring, which has been the norm for the last two years. The daily temperature average for Yellowknife from 1971 to 2000 for December is -23.7C. The average for May is 5.6C. Last year's averages fro the same two months show a balmy -15.1C for December and a not so pleasant 3C for May. The last two years show more or less the same. "Which disturbs me," said Bilan-Wallace. "Are we three times lucky with the warm winter and cold spring and summer?" Anthony Foliot, who dons his Snowking hat during the winter to build his now internationally-famous ice castle on Yellowknife Bay, notices the difference. The last couple winters, he's had to wait to get a heavy loader on the ice because it's been too thin. "Usually around Jan. 2 or 3 I'm out there starting to do something," said Foliot. "Last year, I didn't get the loader on until about the 15th. There was not enough ice." Foliot said the warmer temperatures in winter are not necessarily a good thing ice travellers, particularly when it comes to overflow which was bad last year. It was blamed for the deaths of two snowmobilers last winter when their machines got bogged down in slush. He said last summer showed some strange weather as well. "I noticed we had a lot of wind from the east," said Foliot. "It used to be traditionally we got a lot of wind from the south." Ecology North's Doug Ritchie said he believes global warming is all too real, which is making him depressed. "There's no such thing as normal weather any more," said Ritchie. "It's very cheery. We're just going to hell in a handcart. That's the bottom line."
2005 WEATHER FACTS:
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
|
