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Reason behind weird weather mix

A record high, nearly double the normal precipitation and unseasonable cold all formed part of the weird weather mix for May in Central Alberta, says an Environment Canada meteorologist.

A record high, nearly double the normal precipitation and unseasonable cold all formed part of the weird weather mix for May in Central Alberta, says an Environment Canada meteorologist.

Staying under cover while a spring storm washed over the West Coast, Lisa Coldwells said from her Vancouver office on Wednesday that the month was fairly normal for the first few days here, and then the first in a series of cold lows blew in.

Daytime highs dropped from the mid-teens to 2C and 3C on May 4, bringing three days of rain and snow with highs creeping up to about 10C after that. Red Deer and the surrounding areas got anywhere from four to six centimetres of snow during that first series of storms.

The skies cleared on May 12, producing unusually warm weather with a record high of 28.1C set on May 18, busting a 54-year-old record set in 1956.

Things fell apart again on the afternoon of Thursday, May 20, as campers were getting ready for the long weekend.

The second spell started with thundershowers and rain in the afternoon and went downhill from there. Red Deer had caught the edge of a cold weather system centred toward the southeast areas of the province, but affecting a wider area to some extent, said Coldwells. Altogether, the second system dumped 16.8 mm of precipitation in the Red Deer area, with a bit of a break on May 26. It was a short one.

Another cold low blew in on May 28, producing heavy rain and blanketing the region with fresh snow on May 29.

By the time the sun finally peeked through on Monday, Red Deer had received 99.4 mm of precipitation for the month, said Coldwells. That’s almost double the 30-year average of 52.2 mm.

The good news about cold westerlies on the coast is that they generally bring chinook-like conditions to the Alberta foothills, she said.

But whether the weather will hold for more than a couple of days is still a guess, said Coldwells.

For now, Central Alberta can expect sunny mornings followed by thundershowers later in the day, formed as moisture on the ground evaporates in the mid-day heat.

Environment Canada is forecasting highs in the mid teens for the rest of this week.