Is it summer yet? Balmy temperatures in Edmonton break 100-year-old record
But don't put away your parka just yet, meteorologist warns
It sure didn't feel like winter at all in Edmonton on Wednesday.
In fact, temperatures climbed high enough to break a 100-year-old record.
As of 4 p.m., the temperature at Edmonton Blatchford hit 15.4 C. That's 1.5 C higher than the previous record for this day, set in 1916.
Edmonton wasn't the only city to experience unusually balmy winter weather on Wednesday — Environment Canada said temperature records were also broken in Banff, Calgary, Grande Prairie and High Level.
With near-records in Claresholm, Fort McMurray, Jasper, Medicine Hat and Peace River on Wednesday afternoon, more temperature records may break before the day is over, said Brian Proctor, an Environment Canada meteorologist.
"We've had a lot of warm air flooding across much of Alberta over the past week and a bit," Proctor said.
"Many, many communities across the province are breaking temperature records."
But according to Proctor, we're not out of the cold woods of winter quite yet.
"This is probably going to be the last warm day out of this sort of set of really warm days," he said.
Proctor said the weather will cool down to just below 0 C by the weekend — and despite the unusually warm weather, he said the high temperature fluctuation means Albertans shouldn't put their winter coats away just yet.
"This is Alberta and we are used to high fluctuations in temperatures from one extreme to another," he said.
"We've got a long time to go yet."
Residents of Strathcona County are advised to keep off all bodies of water, as the unusually-warm temperatures have made ice conditions unsafe.
