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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The winter has been gentler on Yellowknife residents this year with temperatures in December, January and February averaging 4.5 C warmer than the same 90-day average from previous years.

Macayla Flett, 10, left, and Kevani Jhankur, 9, build snow castles during this winter’s mild weather. - Lyndsay Herman/NNSL photo

Even with the higher temperatures, the Mackenzie District is only ranked 17th on Environment Canada's list of warmest winters.

Yvonne Bilan-Wallace, meteorologist with Environment Canada, cites a blocking pattern as the reason why the temperature was consistently warmer.

"The weather is like a river that runs around the whole atmosphere", she said, "and sometimes it doesn't want to change its course."

For Yellowknife, that usually means a persistent and deep vortex in the Eastern Arctic pushes frigid air and low temperatures over the city for the months of December, January and February. This year, the vortex was not as persistent and warmer air was swept up from the Pacific coast.

"Every year is quite variable." she said. "Lots can be happening on the ocean and on the land that will affect the atmosphere. You can have a heavy snowfall in Siberia and that will affect the atmosphere."

In Yellowknife, there do not seem to be too many complaints about the temperature change. Trevor Wever, General Manager for Air Tindi, said the effects have been pretty slight.

"When it's warmer the weather can be worse since warm weather masses bring lower clouds, more snow. When it's minus-30 below, it’s generally clear. But overall it really hasn't affected us,” he said.

Bobby Drygeese of B. Dene Adventures hosts tours into the Yellowknife wilderness and says the warmer weather was nice, but at times required extra planning.

"I took some people out and it was nice," he said. "But I had to watch for water because the ice in some places might be thin. We had to watch out when we were packing, too. It might be warm one day but cold the next day, so we had to prepare."

While the temperature is forecast to keep going up in March, Environment Canada doesn't expect it to rise any faster than usual heading into spring.

The warmest year in the Mackenzie District history was 2006, with a temperature 6.3-degrees higher than normal.

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