Some Drought Improvement in January

Drought improved in parts of Western Canada during January but remained stubbornly entrenched in others.

Released this week, the latest monthly update of the Canadian drought monitor (see map below) noted a ‘mixed bag’ in terms of January precipitation, with central and Prairie northern areas doing better while the driest areas in the south continued to get short changed.

Indeed, things got worse in southern Alberta, where extreme drought slightly expanded towards Calgary and Red Deer. Not only has that particular area been mostly dry in the last three months, but a significant portion of the southern part of the province has only received 300 mm of moisture in the last year, approximately 110 to 180 mm less than normal. Exceptional drought also remained near Saskatoon, even though the impacted area was slightly reduced.

On the other hand, a large swath of northern Alberta towards south-central Saskatchewan saw exceptionally high precipitation during January. Heavy precipitation over the past six months has also significantly reduced extreme to exceptional drought in parts of Manitoba, although Mother Nature was not nearly as generous across the southern part of the province.

In most other parts of the Prairies, near-normal to above-normal precipitation has been received this winter season. “Although this precipitation will not fully recover the long-term deficits, it has allowed for slight improvement across the region,” the monitor said.