Mild weather impacts outdoor rink at the Flats
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- Published on Thursday, February 2, 2017
By Miranda Leybourne
The Neepawa Banner
The outdoor rink in Neepawa down at the Flats has been closed due to warmer than expected winter temperatures. Amanda Novak, Leisure Services Manager with the Town of Neepawa, announced the closure via a Facebook post in the group “Coming Events Neepawa and Area” on the morning of Jan. 30.
The warm weather the prairie provinces have been experiencing at one point or another this winter is thought by climatologists to, possibly, be a result of a warm Pacific air pattern. The unusual pattern, replacing the normal Arctic wind that we typically experience at this time of year, has led to several warm weather records province-wide, including in the communities of Gillam, Island Lake, Lynn Lake and Thompson. But it’s not just the northern areas of Manitoba that have seen balmy weather -- Winnipeg experienced a record-breaking weekend of warmth between Jan. 20 and 22.
Terri Lang, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, says that another deciding factor on whether a Canadian winter is cold or mild is usually the jet stream, which normally sits to the south of the country. Anything above the jet stream is cold, while anything below is milder. This year, she says, the jet stream has been moving more than usual.
“It’s certainly been a winter of extremes,” she explains. “We’re having fun trying to chase this pattern.” Lang goes on to say that usually, warm weather like this can be attributed to El Nino, which happened last winter, and which is typically followed by La Nina, which brings colder weather the following year. But this year, La Nina hasn’t shown up.
Lang advises that Manitobans can expect more of the same mild weather, interrupted by infrequent bouts of much colder temperatures.
But Novak isn’t too worried about the weather -- even though the Town of Neepawa’s Winter Wonderland is right around the corner on Feb. 20, with the Neepawa Natives set to skate with local revellers at the outdoor rink.
“Last year around this time we had the same problem,” Novak attests. “We’ve only had one year where we couldn’t do anything [with Winter Wonderland] because there was a terrible blizzard.”
Novak says that once the barricades are off of the ice at the skating rink, the public will know they are allowed back on the ice. Until then, she says, people need to stay off of it, or they’ll end up damaging both their skates and the skating rink.
