Calgary weather forecastLooking for the latest Calgary weather forecast?
Try Environment Canada for current conditions Environment Canada for current conditions and the five day forcast for Calgary weather. If you want a second opinion, The Weather Network, Accuweather and Weather Channel will also tell you what kind of weather Calgary AB Canada is to expect. ++++++++++ Does the latest Calgary Alberta weather forecast make any sense? Try comparing it to the Calgary climate as outlined below. This summary of Climate in Calgary Canada teaches the people who live here to never be unprepared for surprises. That could mean extremes in temperatures, wind, rain, snow or even pleasant Calgary weather. Imagine that! Calgary weather historyThe Calgary International Airport, CYYC, lies about 10 kilometres northeast of the city centre. It logs the official temperatures for the city, though temperatures closer to downtown tend to be warmer than the airport more often than not. This results from changes in:
Here is some history of the locations. Calgary weather observations between 1919 and 1939 were recorded at another location, near Bowness, and who knows before that. That said, the warmest temperature officially measured was 36.1°C on July 15, 1919 and the coldest at -45° was on February 4, 1893. We usually see daily highs in the low to mid 20's in July and winter overnight lows in the -10 to -20 range. You can see, though, that Calgary weather extremes do happen. And they occur even more so, generally, east of the city.
The scale on the left goes from zero to 100 millimetres of precipitation and June gets the most of any month with 88 mm. The temperature scale on the right starts at -15°C and goes to 20 degrees. July is the warmest month with a 24-hour average of just over 15 and January has about minus 7. The city gets about 169 frost free days per year on average. Some of them occur in the fall and even winter The wild temperature fluctuations characteristic of Calgary weather are partly attributed to the continental climate. The high altitude plays a role, and some of the remaining credit goes to the turbulent winds in the wake of the Rocky Mountains. The temperature reaches 20°C or better, about 85 days each year. And 30° only about four times. Chinooks and cold fronts can result in temperature changes of 10° or more in a single hour. Another thing you might be concerned with is the amount of heating or air conditioning you would use in a typical year. 18°C is the accepted threshold for these calculations, and a degree-day tells you how much above or below that level the temperature stays, and for how long. For calculating the potential for energy consumption, the usage of heating for any place would be crudely proportional to the the total number of degree-days below 18 degrees in each year. The same could be said for degree days above 18 and air conditioning usage, though most people in Calgary do not even own AC. Actual usage will also be affected by the location's wind exposure, building design, temperature settings and the amount of bright sunshine. Calgary weather gives us about 40 degree-days on average above that 18 degree mark, which is not very much. We also get an average of about 5100 degree-days below 18°C, meaning you won't survive the year without a furnace. Even more amazing, this figure is considerably less for Calgary than most of the rest of the Canadian Prairies. What about Calgary's precipitation patterns? Calgary has a definite dry season and a moist season. The city gets a little over 400 mm of total precipitation in an average year. Of that we often get 120 cm of snow between September and May, which melts down to about 120 mm of water. That's the drier season. The better part of the 300 mm of rain falling between May and September constitutes our wet (and growing) season. This still makes xeriscape gardening, a technique that conserves water, worthwhile in Calgary weather. We can go months without significant moisture even in the summer. More Calgary weather factsMost rain in one day - 95.3 mm on July 15, 1927. Most snow - 48.4 cm on May 6, 1981. We usually see some kind of precipitation on 113 days out of the year. And we normally have about 88 with snow on the ground (1 cm or more).The winds around here are worth mentioning as well. Southern Alberta in general is recognized as a windy area year round. Calgary's highest gust at 127 km/hour occurred in June, 1956, probably during a thunderstorm. In every month of the year, the most frequent wind direction is west or northwest, with stronger winds coming from the north. And when the temperature is cold, that wind chill bites. Minus 40 or worse about 3 times a year. Is it sunny there? At over 2400 hours on average of bright sunshine per year, Calgary weather, along with many other south Canadian prairie locations, makes us one of Canada's sunniest places. It can be bright, sunny and extremely cold and wind all at the same time in winter. Something to experience.
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