'Certainly alarming': N.W.T.'s Beaufort Delta region sees unusually warm weather

It may have been the last week of October, but some record-breaking temperatures in the N.W.T.'s Beaufort Delta region this week had people feeling like it was spring.

Inuvik broke records for two days in a row, with highs of 5.7 C Tuesday and 3.9 C Wednesday.

"Going well into the positives is certainly alarming as it's never happened before at this time of year," said Armel Castellan, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.

Castellan said the Beaufort Delta region was experiencing a very strong warm front with southerly winds. 

Some coastal N.W.T. communities like Paulatuk, Ulukhaktok and Sachs Harbour experienced a blizzard due to winds that Castellan said "were fierce pretty much everywhere" along the coast and in the region earlier in the week.

By Tuesday, Inuvik and Aklavik saw abnormally warm weather. It was nearly 10 C on Oct. 29 in Aklavik. The next day it was 8.1 C.

Castellan said the previous warmest recorded temperature Aklavik had experienced at this time of year was just above zero.

"As we get to the end of the month we're normally really seeing temperatures that are quite a bit cooler. The averages for Inuvik are very similar to Aklavik: highs [around] minus 13, lows, minus 20," Castellan said.

He said the average low for this October is –6.5 C, and average high is 0.5 C. That means the recent temperatures are "12.5 degrees warmer than normal pretty much for both the highs and low temperatures," he said.

Inuvik's coldest day so far this winter was –14.6 C on Oct. 27. 

Castellan said the region has been seeing a trend of unusually warm weather during winter the last couple of years and he's expecting that to continue.

Turning to a report released earlier this year by Environment and Climate Change Canada, which states that Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average, Castellan said the Arctic is dealing with three times that rate of warming.

"The Beaufort [Delta region] is in a sense ground zero for that in Canada."

"It's just always been the northwest that's been kind of the forefront leader in changing temperatures."

Over the next couple of weeks temperatures are expected to dip closer to –20 C across the region.

On Friday, temperatures dropped to –12 C, closer to the average in the Beaufort Delta for this time of year.