SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The old saying for March weather is "in like a lion – out like a lamb." For Yellowknife this year, however, the reality might be reversed.

Barb Bromley gets some sun at her home on Latham Island on Sunday. She says winters have gotten warmer since the 1970s. - Adrian Lysenko/NNSL photo

This has been one of the warmest and driest winters the country has experienced since 1948, according to Environment Canada. In Yellowknife, temperature records were broken for several days in February and March and for daytime highs, the mercury has hovered around zero. But the forecast for this week calls for temperatures to drop back down to seasonal norms.

Long-time Yellowknife resident Morley Johnson doesn't recall a winter in its months as warm as this.

"When I came in 1947 there were some pretty cold winters," he said.

He has a theory.

"Maybe it's too many people telling lies and all that hot air going up in the atmosphere."

Although the winter has been warmer than average, Mike Byrne said he doesn't think it's anything too out of the ordinary.

"The climate is always changing," said Byrne. "We live in a place where 100 million years ago it was a tropical swamp.

"February is a month of unpredictability," he added. "I've seen it rain and heard it thunder; it can do all sorts of stuff."

Former mayor David Lovell said March weather brings unpredictability, particularly when it's carnival season, which begins this weekend.

"Caribou Carnival can be all sorts of weather. I've seen it bitterly cold and it's been reasonably warm," said Lovell.

"This is April weather."

Byrne said he remembered an especially warm Caribou Carnival on Frame Lake several years ago.

"One year the beer tent flooded with six inches of water and there was a guy passed out in it," said Byrne. "I can't remember if he drowned or not."

Barb Bromley, another seasoned resident, isn't sure whether climate change is at the root of our weird weather.

"I don't know. Bob is into climate change," said Bromley, referring to her son Bob Bromley, the Weledeh MLA. "He thinks it's been happening for a few years."

Bromley said when she moved to the city 62 years ago the winters were colder, but they started getting milder in the 1970s and '80s.