CALGARY—The extreme cold temperatures that took hold of most of the province last month didn’t just make it feel like one of the coldest Februarys in Alberta’s history — it was.

Banff had its coldest February on record based on 131 years of temperature data, according to Environment Canada, with a mean temperature of -17.6 C — more than 11 degrees lower than its usual -6 C.

Meanwhile, both Calgary and Edmonton had their coldest Februarys since the Great Depression.

According to Brian Proctor, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, a cold jet stream that locked itself into parts of Alberta’s atmosphere can be blamed for the month of extreme dips in temperature and cold wind chills across the province.

“We’ve had a very strong flow pattern, setting up northwest winds coming out of the Arctic Ocean down the Mackenzie Valley, and it hasn’t been very progressive,” Proctor said “It’s been a very stagnant pattern, which is responsible for a lot of that cold air coming down.”

Lethbridge, with a mean temperature of -19.5 C, and Red Deer, with a mean of -21.3 C, both had their second-coldest Februarys since data started being collected.

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Calgary had a mean of -18.7 C, and Grande Prairie had a mean of -23.6 C, giving them each their third-coldest February.

Meanwhile, it was the fifth-coldest February for Edmonton in its 139 years of temperature data, with a mean of -19.4 C.

None of those cities have seen such a cold February since 1936.

And though it will warm up toward the end of March, the cold is not exactly going to go away in the spring.

An early arrival of warmer weather might induce a quick melting season — and a bit of a reprieve for Albertans. But if Environment Canada’s predictions are correct, March, April and May are going to see colder than seasonal averages, with some typical ups and downs in temperatures, Proctor said.

While the cold may seem like the opposite of a global warming trend, Proctor said when you zoom out to look at the “big picture,” the extreme temperatures Albertans saw in February do reflect climate change models that warn of unusual ups and downs in weather across the globe.

“We’re seeing more high-scale fluctuations ... and that’s really indicative of what climate change is suggesting we should be seeing, and that’s probably what this can relate to,” Proctor said.

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“In general, if we look at the Earth as a whole — it’s been a very warm winter over much of the Northern Hemisphere and a very warm Southern Hemisphere summer,” he said.

“You couldn’t directly link the two (Alberta’s weather in February and climate change), but it’s still something we should expect from what we’re seeing from the climate change scenarios.”

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