If you were building an ark in your backyard, you can rest for a few days. Temperatures are expected to spike in Edmonton over the next 72 hours, and after record rainfall through June and into July, those puddles in the yard can finally dry out.
In fact, the sun is expected to shine so brightly that the City of Edmonton has activated its extreme heat response. Environment Canada is forecasting highs in the 30 C range from Thursday to Saturday. Dry conditions are expected, save for a 30 per cent chance of rain Saturday evening.
The city’s heat activation is scheduled to go to Saturday morning, but can be extended if the temperatures persist. City policy calls for the heat warnings to be activated when the forecast calls for three straight days with highs of 29 C or more.
Water stations attached to fire hydrants will be set up at 29 locations across Edmonton. Peace officers will carry water bottles that can be distributed to the vulnerable population as needed. Recreation centres, libraries and public swimming pools will be open for use as cooling stations, and free bottled water is available for pickup at city facilities.
Environment Canada meteorologist Janelle Gergely said an upper ridge is moving into the area, which will shift the pattern from grey and rainy to cloudless and sunny.
“What that means is we get sinking air, which prevents cloud development, which means we won’t have storms, which we’ve had a lot of in Edmonton,” said Gergely. “It just means sunny conditions and it allows heat to build.”
Also, a shift in the wind means that we’re no longer getting smoke blown into the region from forest fires in the Northwest Territories, so expect air quality to improve.
“The upper level winds were in a northerly flow, so it was affecting that smoke southward,” said Gergely. “That source region is now cut off. The upper level winds have shifted, but there’s still a lot of smoke around, and the wind at the surface are quite light. So we’re not going to get any fresh smoke into the region, but it may take a while to disperse the smoke that is already here. So I would say we’ll likely see improvement over the next 24 hours as that smoke slowly disperses.”
But she said there is a risk that we could get smoke from fires in British Columbia. But, navigating the risk of wildfire smoke has become the new normal for Canadian summers.
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