Happy 20th Birthday to us!

Happy 20th Birthday to us!

We officially launched the University of Waterloo weather station on Feb 27, 1998. If you want to see what the webpage looked like in the early years you can see it here.

Thanks to everyone who has helped make the station possible for all these years and of course thanks to everyone who uses and enjoys the station.

Be sure to join us for the 20th anniversary talk on Monday (see the details here).

20th Anniversary of the UW Weather Station Lecture

It is hard to believe, but the University of Waterloo Weather Station has been giving the public up to date weather conditions for 20 years! (Not to mention an archive of every reading ever taken as well as the popular contest to guess when the temperature first goes over 20 C). 

To mark this milestone, join UW Weather Station Coordinator Frank Seglenieks as he gives a presentation recalling how it all got started, the hurdles we have had to overcome, what trends we have seen in the data, and what we have learned along the way. There will also be a chance to ask questions about everything you have ever wanted to know about the station.

Tickets are free, but please register here so we can get an idea of how many people we can expect.  

 

2018 UW Weather Station contest has started

The entry period for the 2018 UW Weather Station contest has started, you can put in your guess for the first day the temperature will go over 20C here:

http://weather.uwaterloo.ca/20th_contest/contest.html

You have to get your guess in by Wednesday, February 28th at 2 pm.

January 2017 Summary

A cold and wet January

The start of the month was very cold, as well as some days in the low minus 20s, we had a streak of 12 days (going back into 2017) where the temperature never went above -8°C.  This is the second longest streak like this, only surpassed by 1961 when there were 15 and just a little longer than in 1979 when we had 11.

We then experienced many temperature oscillations with a few days above zero, followed by a few below, and so on.  In fact the temperature passed through zero a total of 6 times leading to some mixed precipitation making for some difficult driving and walking conditions.

However, the warmer temperatures couldn’t make up for those really cold temperatures at the beginning of the month leading to an overall temperature that was a little more than a degree below average.

The total precipitation that fell was 73.3 mm, enough above the average of the 65.2 mm to put it into the above average range.  As far as snowfall, we had 28 cm less than the average of 43.7 cm for the month, while the total so far this season is 66 cm compared to the average of 95.3 cm for this point in the snowfall season.


Summary for January 2018:
Maximum Temperature 11.3°C
Minimum Temperature -28.6°C
Average Daily High Temperature -2.7°C (Long term average -2.6°C)
Average Daily Low Temperature -12.5°C (Long term average -10.3°C)
Total Precipitation 73.3 mm (Long term average 65.2 mm)

(Long term averages based on 1981-2010 data for the Waterloo-Wellington Airport)