That great yellow stranger in the sky could stick around for a few days — maybe even a couple of weeks — says Environment Canada.
After one of the most dreary summers on record, Central Albertans can finally warm up to sunny days with temperatures rising as high as the mid-20s, meteorologist John McIntyre said from his office in Vancouver this week.
Rain on the coast usually means warm, dry weather on the Prairies, which is exactly what is happening as a high-pressure system settled over the northwestern United States, said McIntyre.
The Red Deer region had two days of warm sunny weather late in August, capped with a high of just over 31C on Aug. 26, he said.
But then the lows came marching in.
Series of low pressure systems seem to have characterized most of the summer of 2010, with the latest starting their eastward advance across the northern United States on Aug. 27, when the high reached only 18C, said McIntyre.
And it just got worse from there. While there was no really heavy precipitation during the past month, the low-pressure systems spat cold, damp weather throughout the Prairie provinces, netting day after day of drizzle and light showers.
Total precipitation for September reached just under 50 mm by Thursday, just a few drops short of the normal of 46 mm for the entire month.
And then, on Wednesday, the sun finally broke through, buoyed on warm, dry air that had been scrubbed clean of moisture on its trip over the mountains.
McIntyre anticipates the system will hold until at least Oct. 2 and perhaps longer.
The good news didn’t come a minute too soon for the director of golf at River Bend Golf Course, who spent the late afternoon on Thursday basking in the sun with his daughter.
Todd Fiske said miserable weather has discouraged golfers. Those who have tackled the course have found the greens and fairways in good shape, but the balls don’t travel as far, which makes the course a lot longer.
“We were down 10 per cent just due to the weather. It equates to about three weeks worth of revenue,” said Fiske.
Now that the sunshine has returned, morning starts have been delayed by fog and frost and the shorter days cut the available play time by almost half, making it more difficult to make up the lost time.
But he’ll take it. River Bend’s annual Maximum Challenge, open to all players, is set to start at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, with a big dinner and function afterward. Fiske hopes the weather will hold at least that long, if not longer.
“If we’re lucky, we’ll stay open until the . . . final Sunday of October,” he said.
Grain farmer Kevin Bender said he feels quite lucky to have the type of soil that holds moisture well so he can still use his field equipment when it’s wet.
Bender’s canola and wheat are still waiting to be combined, delayed by at least two weeks because of the cool summer.
The moisture didn’t really hurt, but the crops were slow to mature, said Bender. Heavy frost last week stopped all growth, so now it’s a matter of getting into the fields to harvest what had looked like exceptional crops earlier in the summer.
There’s no way of knowing how the wheat and canola will grade until it has been harvested, said Bender. He expects that yields will be strong, but quality will have dropped off quite a bit with the wheat likely to hit feed grade.
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com