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Winter in Kenora this year has been significantly colder while bringing much more snow than the winter before.
Environment Canada Meteorologist, Steven Flisfeder was able to shed some light on what has changed in the terms of weather this winter.
“So far this year there have been quite a few systems making their way through the area. A lot of Alberta Clippers, which typically don’t give all that much snow, but this year have been a little bit more on the high end of their potential,” Flisfeder said.
“This year whether if you’re a snow lover or not it has been more than you would ordinarily be seeing for this time of the year,” Flisfeder added.
So far this winter from October 2021 until January 18, 2022, Flisfeder confirmed there has been 114 cm of snow recorded at the Kenora Airport with the most coming in November of 2021 when 41 cm fell in the month.
On average the Kenora area sees approximately 159.7 cm of snowfall from October until April.
The region has now surpassed last winter's snowfall totals in just four months.
“Last year going from October [2020] until April [2021] the snowfall total at the Kenora Airport was 83.9 cm.”
Flisfeder did want to point out there were some caveats with last winter’s snowfall totals.
“The first being there was a lot of missing data for both November and December of last year [2020]. The second reason I’ll give is that there was quite a bit of snow last April actually 23 cm total last April following zero in March.”
On two occasions this winter the Kenora area has seen significant snowstorms. The first was back in the early part of November 2021 when just under 30 cm fell in just two days, which shut down major traffic routes in the region.
The second came on Tuesday (January 18, 2022) when 16 cm of snow fell in just one day.
Though a future forecast on the amount of snow could not be given for the rest of winter, he did say that there is more snow in the forecast for at least Friday (January 19, 2022).
The region has also faced bone-chilling temperatures this winter as well.
“This winter particularly January, December was closer to what we would be expecting for the normal’s in December. January has been on the cold side mostly due to quite a few arctic fronts making their way significantly southward and that’s been the main cause of all this cold weather in Northwestern Ontario.” Flisfeder concluded.
The average high for January so far has been -15.2 degrees Celsius, and the average low is -24.2 degrees.