Early Winter Now Making the Record Books

Clear skies, light wind, a frigid air mass behind yesterday's cold front and a fresh snow pack combined this morning to produce some of the coldest temperatures we have seen this early in the season in parts of southern Manitoba in at least a century.

Winnipeg Airport dropped to -23.7°C this morning, obliterating the old record of -20.6°C in 1933 and 1966 for today. It is also the 3rd earliest occurrence of temperature below -23°C since 1872. The earliest were on November 3, 1873 and 1893. This also means that this is the coldest we have been this early in the season in over 120 years in Winnipeg.

Brandon Airport was the cold spot of southern Manitoba with a low of -26.3°C at the Airport. This broke their old record of -25.0°C in 1966 and was the 3rd earliest date to dip below -26°C since 1890.

A non-exhaustive list of records are included in the following table:

Location	New record	Old record	Record period(s)
Brandon	-26.3°C	-25.0°C (1966)	1890-present
Fisher Branch	-23.9°C	-21.0°C (1979)	1977-present
Winnipeg	-23.7°C	-20.6°C (1933, 1966)	1872-present
Roblin	-23.5°C	-18.5°C (1985)	1969-present
Pilot Mound	-23.2°C	-21.7°C (1966)	1938-1956, 1958-present
Gretna	-21.3°C	-15.6°C (1957, 1973)	1955-present
Swan River	-20.7°C	-17.8°C (1911, 1960)	1908-present
Steinbach	At least -19.9*	-19.5°C (1979)	1956-2004, 2006-present
Carman	-17.9°C	-15.0°C (1996)	1904, 1984-85, 1990-present
*Steinbach actual low (Mb Ag station) won’t be known until tomorrow morning. Temperature given is an 8 am temperature.

The cold spot in Manitoba was at the Leaf Rapids Manitoba Fire station in northern Manitoba with a low of about -31°C.

There is the potential for record low maximums today. Another cold night tonight across southern Manitoba with some -20°C lows possible. We moderate somewhat this weekend and we might exceed the freezing mark on a day or two early next week. It probably won't enough to melt away the snow pack. The current snow pack began November 5. If snow depth remains above 2 cm through to spring, it would be the 6th earliest starting date for the longest lasting snow pack of the winter since 1955.

Note that on this date last year, Winnipeg reached a record 18.8°C.