A look back at February in Portage: 5th warmest and 25th driest

While mother nature hasn't been kind to Portage la Prairie with a couple of storms to start the month of March, as we look back on February, it was a different story,

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) meteorologist Natalie Hasell tells PortageOnline that the prairies were warm during the month of love. She highlights that the mean temperature for Portage last month was -5.9, making it the fifth warmest February ever recorded for the region. The average monthly temperature for February in any given year is -12.9, with daytime highs and overnight lows factored in. This year, that was not the case.

"That gives us a difference of 7° from normal, which is quite significant in terms of ranking," says Hasell regarding ECCC's over 111 years of data.

The warmest February ever in Portage was 1998, with a mean temperature of -3.8. The coldest ever? 1914, with a mean of -23.2.

Concerning precipitation recorded by ECCC last month, Hasell says Portage got 9.1 mm of precipitation.

"That is just a touch over half of what we would normally see in February, which is what you actually got this year."

She says that with that amount of precipitation in February this year, it was the 25th driest February ever for the region.

"That's not record-breaking at all, but certainly quite dry. Certainly, looking at the conditions, we saw far less precipitation than we would normally get."

Looking at the wettest year, February 2000 had 74.2 mm, about five times more than average. The driest February ever? 1993 had no precipitation reported AT ALL in Portage according to records.

We will see what ECCC records are for March. However, based on how the month has been so far, with a couple of storms and colder temperatures, we can assume things will look different when March is over. Only time will tell.