The May forecast for Alberta is out and it's an early taste of summer
May is just around the corner and the forecast is hinting at Alberta seeing some lovely temperatures. Let’s hope the May Long weekend is taking part!
Find your favourite sunglasses and maybe even prepare the heavy-duty sunscreen. Here’s how the May forecast is shaping up for us in Alberta.
Daily Hive asked Alyssa Pederson, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), to break down what Alberta should see in May and if any surprises are in the cards.
How are temperatures looking in May across Alberta?
Pederson said that models are showing a pretty high likelihood of above-average temperatures for May across Alberta, including for Edmonton and Calgary, clocking in at a 70 to 80 per cent likelihood that most of the province is going to be above normal.
When it comes to normal temperatures for May, Pederson said that, generally speaking, the normal is around the 16Ā°C mark. Above normal temperatures will bring us to around the high teens, with the low 20s being what can be expected more often than not.
“Of course, we’ll still have days where it’s colder, but you know, more often than not, we’ll have those days above 16Ā°C.”
The only weather hazard on Pederson’s radar for May in Alberta would also be any heat events that the province has, when some temperatures are in the mid-20s across the province where people are not used to heat like that at this time of year and can catch some people off guard.
Will it be a rainy May in Alberta?
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When it comes to precipitation this May, it’s a little trickier to forecast. Pederson said that, due to it being spring, systems that move through the province at this time of year can be quite volatile and can dump large amounts of rain quickly.
“We got thunderstorm activities starting up, which means any given specific, small location could get, you know, 25 to 50 millimetres of rain with one thunderstorm it moves through. So it gets a little bit trickier in the spring.”
That being said, the likelihood of it being drier than normal appears to be around 60 to 70 per cent across Alberta.
Some extreme sections of northern Alberta may be a tad wetter than normal, but pretty much the entirety of central and southern Alberta has a high signal for being drier than usual.
Looking at the month as a whole, Albertans should prepare to enjoy some warmer-than-normal highs and soak it all in.
“At this point, I’d be comfortable booking camping trips and, you know, getting summer started. But always remember it’s still May, it’s still springtime, and Alberta can throw some weather curveballs at us, pretty much right through June. We call June monsoon season, because we get those big rainfall events kind of mid, end of May and into June.”