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Photo: Shane Clausing
By Shane Clausing
record breaking summer

Grande Prairie records hottest summer; warm temperatures expected for long weekend

Sep 3, 2021 | 6:00 AM

After what can be described as a wet final two weeks of August, sunshine and warm weather will be returning to Grande Prairie and the Peace Region over the Labour Day long weekend.

Environment Canada Meteorologist Kyle Fougere tells EverythingGP that temperatures over the course of the weekend will be above normal for this time of year.

“It has been cooler and wetter than normal lately, (but) looking at this weekend it’s going to get above normal,” he explained.

“Typically, we say daytime highs of 18 degrees Celsius with overnight lows of five this time of year, and we are looking at temperatures between 22 and 24 for the weekend.”

Those warm temperatures are also expected to be felt throughout Alberta, with spots like Edmonton, Calgary, Jasper, and Banff all expected to get to highs in the low to mid 20’s.

While summer is nearing its end, Fougere suggests there’s a chance above normal temperatures will stick around in the region.

“For Alberta this fall it’s looking like (we are) expecting temperatures to be slightly above normal for the September, October, and November months. We are also expecting there to be above normal precipitation during the three-month period of the fall.”

Environment Canada and Meteorologists look at the start of September as the “unofficial” start of fall.

With the summer months now done with for the season, Fougere says the heat Grande Prairie saw this year was historic.

“August itself was above normal, but it was only point-eight degrees above normal looking at the mean temperature, but it capped off the end of a very warm summer,” he said.

“When we look at the summer for the June, July, August months, this was the warmest summer in the Grande Prairie region on record.”

The past summer also saw Grande Prairie break various temperature records.

On June 29, Grande Prairie was listed as the hottest place in Alberta as it registered a record high temperature of 41.5 degrees Celsius.

In July, the average high temperature in Grande Prairie reached 24.2 degrees, while reaching 24.5 degrees in June. The average daily high temperature in August was 22.4.

The warm weather also caused a very dry summer in the region as well.

“August was actually normal with 56 millimetres (of rain), which is exactly the average for August,” Fougere explained.

“But, that followed a very dry start to the summer. This is the driest summer the Grande Prairie region has had since 1970, it was in fact the sixth driest summer ever.”

There were just 94 millimetres of rain that fell in Grande Prairie over the summer months.

by Shane Clausing