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Downtown Swift Current the final week of December 2011

 

 

The winter of 2011-2012 has certainly been one to remember for southwest Saskatchewan. From temperatures well above average with sunshine, to day with spring like rainfall, it's certainly a far cry from the original forecast of a colder than average winter that we had heard for the region last fall.

Jason Nimegeers is an agrimeteorologist with Swift Current SPARC station and noticed some interesting trends last month.

"This December ranked the 15th warmest in 126 years," says Nimegeers. "It was (on average) -5.1 when compared to the mean of -9.6."

As for precipitation, while snowfall was down compared to normal levels it wasn't necessarily a dry month for the area around the City, as Nimegeers notes the rain we saw late in the month. "Interestingly enough, we had 3.4 mm of rain which isn't common in December," he says. "That actually ranks 10th out of 126 years."

The average snowfall seen throughout the month was the 30th lowest since records have been kept at SPARC.

 

Donovan Fehr talked about December's stats with Agrimeteorologist, Jason Nimegeers...