Thick ice fog settled over Grande Prairie Sunday morning, as temperatures dropped as low as minus 44 (Photo: Shaun Penner / EverythingGP)

By Shaun Penner

Deep Freeze

Extreme cold warning remains following bone chilling weekend in Grande Prairie

Feb 8, 2021 | 2:00 PM

It was a bone-chilling weekend in the Grande Prairie area, but an Environment Canada Meteorologist says the temperatures recorded on Saturday and Sunday were not quite enough to surpass daily temperature records in the Swan City.

Kyle Fougere says the low, non-wind chill-based temperature on February 6 was marked at minus 40.1 degrees at the Grande Prairie Airport, which makes for the second coldest temperature on that day. The record came in 1951 when the temperature dipped to minus 40.6.

Sunday’s low temperature, he adds, was recorded at minus 44 degrees Celsius, which was six degrees short of the all-time record for February 7.

The record, non-wind chill-based low temperature for that day in Grande Prairie took place in 1936 when the mercury dipped to minus 50 degrees Celsius, which Fougere adds is the coldest recorded temperature by Environment Canada in Grande Prairie for February ever.

The cold comes as an artic mass settled in over Grande Prairie and the rest of the Prairies, which Fougere describes as “very difficult to displace”, saying the cold air like this doesn’t leave right away.

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“There is hope that towards the end of the week, the temperature will start to mitigate and will rise slightly,” said Fougere, saying temperatures will still remain below the normal of around minus seven for daytime highs.

“Even through next week, it’s looking like we’re likely to stay below normal, but it does look like towards the end of this week temperatures will begin to slowly rise as we slowly start to get out of the arctic air.”

Temperatures in Grande Prairie Sunday morning were also cold enough to register the Swan City as one of the coldest places on earth, even colder than places in the Arctic.

According to the weather site WX Now, Grande Prairie was one of the coldest places on earth just before 10 a.m. Sunday. (Courtesy: WX Now)

“It’s not that it’s cold everywhere, it’s that that centre of that Arctic cold mass has shifted down over Alberta,” said Fougere. “It’s actually quite warm in parts of the Arctic right now, we’re setting records up in the Arctic because the warm air has moved up and this cold air has just been displaced south.”

An extreme cold warning remains in effect for all of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Environment Canada says temperatures in Grande Prairie are expected to reach a low of minus 40 tonight, with wind chill values making it feel closer to minus 50.