January and February ranked “somewhere in the top five” of the warmest and driest Red Deer has registered since the Second World War, an Environment Canada meteorologist said Thursday.
Environment Canada also announced Thursday that we can expect much of the same excessively warm and dry weather across the country in the spring months to come.
The average amount of precipitation — rain or snow — seen at Red Deer Regional Airport for the month of March from 1971-2000 was 16.9 millimetres.
Last month, only 4.4 millimetres hit the ground. This March was also up there as one of the driest.
“That’s fairly significant,” said meteorologist David Wray.
“There have been drier years, there have been warmer years, but certainly not many . . . Maybe four or five.”
The exact nature of what’s to come in terms of temperature and rain- or snowfall is beyond the scope of forecasters, but the general trends — according to early spring projections recently released — show unseasonable conditions across the country, most notably back East.
“Essentially over the entire country was a red blob, which indicated warmer than normal temperatures (and less precipitation),” Wray said.
“It’s odd to see it kind of broad-brushed like that across the country ... The solutions seem to be fairly continuous or consistent across the entire province (of Alberta), which doesn’t bode well for a lot of industries, like forestry and farming.”
Wray said the El Nino weather situation is weakening since January and February, and that as a result Alberta temperatures this spring shouldn’t exceed the three or four degrees above average that were seen in the later part of winter.
Local agriculture producers say it’s far too soon to panic.
Jeff Nielsen, a farmer near Olds and also a director with the Canadian Wheat Board, said he hopes an old notion proves true that intense winter fogs will give way 90 days later to heavy precipitation.
But his biggest concern right now is the lack of subsoil moisture, which he said could end up hurting him.
“If we get some rain to get the crop emerging and then it turns around and gets hot and dry, if we have good roots developing, they really have nothing to develop into,” Nielsen said.
Red Deer County agricultural manager Art Preachuk said the dry conditions are a concern, but that there are things farmers can do to prepare: seed early, pull out moisture-draining weeds, and minimize tillage.
“There’s things they can do to help, but in the end, Mother Nature rules and we need something to come down from the sky,” said Preachuk. “If you know anybody that can do a rain dance, you book them for about May 15th.”
mgauk@www.reddeeradvocate.com