It is beginning to feel like 2018 may be the year of unending winter.
There is some hope in the forecast that on the Canadian Prairies at least we are inching closer to normal temperatures.
Of course normal in terms of temperature is basically an approximation which happens more years than not, so discounting extremes you sit somewhere in the middle of things. A meteorologist might have a different explanation, but in general terms normal temperatures are more guideline than expected occurrence.
But even when you factor that into things, this winter is hanging on rather more tenaciously than usual.
According to Saskatoon-based Saskatchewan Research Council climate researcher Virginia Wittrock, March was cold, something which anecdotally most of us are nodding in agreement with.
In a www.producer.com story Wittrock noted March had 20 days with average daily temperatures below the 30-year norm, based on data recorded between 1981 and 2010.
The first two weeks of April weren鈥檛 much better.
According to Wittrock in the same article, 12 of the first 13 days in April had daily average temperatures below the 1981-2010 average.
The cold weather is not localized to the Canadian Prairies either.
Opening day at Wrigley Field in Chicago was postponed for the Cubs because of snow. A picture of the famous baseball stadium covered in snow circulated widely on social media.
If you follow the Toronto Blue Jays then you have seen a number of players masked with balaclavas to fend off the cold during games this spring.
And, there have been 20 postponed baseball games this season already, while last season there was only 26 the whole year.
And this weekend Ontario has been hit by a major storm.
A powerful Colorado low continues to deliver strong winds, ice pellets, freezing rain and heavy rain across southern Ontario, leaving tens of thousands without power, reported www.theweathernetwork.com 鈥淎s of 3:30 p.m. local time Sunday, nearly 47,000 Hydro One customers were without power. Meanwhile, more than 700 crashes in the Greater Toronto Area have been reported since the storm began,鈥� according to Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Kerry Schmidt.
The naysayers will be suggesting the continued cold is showing global warming is a myth, but it more accurately supports that we are undergoing climate change more dramatic than any long term cycles would suggest as normal.
The immediate effect for agriculture on the Prairies will be to delay seeding, how long depending on what weather we experience over the next month.
But seeding will be delayed, along with a number of other activities.
The Fort Qu鈥橝ppelle Fish Culture Station is having to keep fish fry alive in tanks longer than normal because ice cover on lakes has delayed stocking.
And golf courses are going to have a shorter play season simply because greens are going to have a late start in terms of 小蓝视频 in play condition.
Farmers are going to have a smaller prime seeding window, and if the weather does not improve quickly it will force changes in crop choices, with moves to shorter season crops a must.
It all again reinforces how much of what we do relies on weather over which we have no control.
Calvin Daniels is Editor with Yorkton This Week.
