Winter 2011-12 Summary

University of Waterloo Weather Station Summary - Winter 2011/2012

The warmest winter ever

I think the headline says it all, at almost 5 degrees above average it was the warmest winter we have seen since records began in the area almost 100 years ago.  This was about half a degree more than the previous warmest winter of 1931-32.

The heat was also consistent with every month of the season well above average.  The last week of winter felt more like summer with temperatures around 20 degrees higher than average.

The longest streak of below zero temperature was for 4 days, this is quite a contrast to last year when between January 1^st and February 13^th it only went above zero for a single day.

Not much to say about the precipitation, the total of 158.3 mm was not that far off of the average of 189.3 mm.  It was wetter at the beginning of the winter and started to get drier in the second half.

During the winter we had 71 cm of snow (note that this is not the total for the entire snowfall season which is longer) compared to the average of 103 cm.  I think it seemed like a lot less as any snow we did have didn’t last very long.

In the end of winter poll done on the UW weather station blog, a total of 271 people showed that it was very polarizing winter.  A total of 43% called it either a great or good winter while 40% thought it was bad or a total washout.

Summary for Winter 2011/2012:
Maximum Temperature  22.2°C
Minimum Temperature -18.3°C
Average Daily High Temperature 3.0°C (Long term average -1.5°C)
Average Daily Low Temperature -4.7°C  (Long term average -9.9°C)
Total Precipitation 158.3 mm (Long term average 189.3 mm)

(Long term averages based on 1971-2000 data for the Waterloo Wellington Airport)