September was warmer than usual, and Red Deerians can expect much of the same for the early days of October.
It was 1.6 degrees warmer than the 30-year normal, which was the 22nd warmest September among the 108 years of records kept by Environment Canada.
“We had quite a stagnant weather pattern in that it was warmer than normal in Alberta, but it was also cooler than normal in the eastern Prairies, so we were on the good side of that blocking pattern,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Sarah Hoffman.
As the calendar flipped, last month was also the first time in the past four Septembers that the region hadn’t experienced any snowfall. With just 23.7 millimetres of precipitation, it was also one of the driest Septembers in the past 10 years.
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Hoffman said it’s pretty rare for the region to not have at least a bit of snow in September, and a lot of that was due to moderate temperatures throughout the month, with few extreme highs or lows.
“It was easy to do the forecast, kinda like copy and paste,” joked Hoffman.
In early October, she expects the same, and across the West, fall should be warmer than normal. As the Thanksgiving long weekend approaches, there’s a strong likelihood that will change, however.
“Starting off next week pretty nice, and at the end of the week, we could see a bit of breakdown in that,” she said.
“Moving forward in October, we are expecting warmer-than-normal temperatures… I would add the caveat, typically, some of our highest snowfalls are in October, just because things come together with the right temperature gradients.”