After an unseasonably mild October, Winnipeggers can expect more warm days into November and even December — good news for Liz Wreford, co-owner of Langside Grocery.
The West Broadway small-plates and cocktail bar’s patio is still open, thanks to the balmy weather.
“It’s looking beautiful. We were just talking about it yesterday that we should officially tell everybody that (the patio) is open,” said Wreford, who reopened the longtime neighbourhood fixture with Peter Sampson last January. The two are co-founders of Public Architecture, and the firm’s offices are upstairs.
RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS
Chris Lindquist makes the most of an unusually mild November Monday afternoon, jogging across the Assiniboine Foot Bridge and through the park Monday despite a light rain.
“It’s kind of fun.”
And unusual; the forecast suggests their customers might be able to enjoy a drink or a bite outside just a little longer this year. The mean daily temperature for October in Winnipeg was 8 C, just under three degrees above what’s normal, and the trend is expected to continue into the end of the year, Environment and Climate Change Canada said.
Forecast temperatures this week range from 6 C to 14 C, above-normal for November.
Should the weather stay relatively civilized, Wreford said this might be the year Langside Grocery tries out a winter patio — complete with blankets and heaters, if they’re needed.
“We were already thinking about keeping it open on really nice days in the winter this year,” Wreford said.
“I think it would be great for people to go out there this week. It’s like a gift, this extra-nice weather.”
MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS
Dressed for the weather, Bekah Roe strolls along Wellington Crescent Monday afternoon as temperatures hover around 14C.
Warmer temperatures across Canada are being driven in part by El Niño, a strong climate phenomenon when the Pacific Ocean warms, and then the heat is shed into the atmosphere, impacting the weather.
Matt Albers, a senior meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said while El Niño is a contributing factor, the current forecast could also be a “normal aberration” in Manitoba’s weather patterns.
“Once the impacts of El Niño are fully felt, we may even continue to have some warmer temperatures continue into December,” he said. “Generally speaking, for Manitoba and southern Manitoba, what that ends up doing is it just shifts our weather patterns a little bit further north.”
Albers warned that the forecast doesn’t mean Manitobans should rush to donate their winter boots or forgo winter tires — even if the weather is warmer, that doesn’t mean it can’t still be unpredictable.
“The pattern can still shift drastically enough where one day we can be back to -5 C with snowy conditions and bad roads, and then a few days later the pattern will rebound and all that snow will melt,” he said.
“That might just make it maybe a little bit more uncertain, and maybe there’s a better chance of freezing rain and other types of precipitation, because we’re going to be near that zero-degree mark still.”
malak.abas@winnipegfreepress.com
Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.
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