Leader staff
Slave Lake had more snow in December than any other December in the last 35 years and more than all but four full winters (Dec. to Feb.).
Environment and Climate Change Canada has data for weather stations in Slave Lake. Town of Slave Lake Mayor Francesca Ward used the data to create the following charts, and released them in a social media post.
She says, “For those wondering if this December’s snowfall was ‘just a normal winter’ — turns out, it really wasn’t. I dug into publicly available Environment and Climate Change Canada data and compared December totals from 1990 to 2025. At this station, snowfall is measured as water-equivalent precipitation (standard practice).”
December 2025 was the highest on record with 52 mm, says Ward. This was 10 mm higher than the closest year which was 1991, with 42 mm. In the last 35 years, the numbers aren’t even close.
“Millimetres isn’t the same as millimetres on a ruler,” adds Ward, in follow-up information to The Leader.
“There’s a different metric for precipitation that they use.”
The Government of Canada’s Manual of Climatological Observations (MANCLIM) says, “In meteorology, precipitation refers to water particles, whether liquid or solid, that form when water vapour changes to liquid or solid form and is deposited on the earth’s surface. The amount of precipitation, expressed in millimetres (mm), refers to the depth of water which would have accumulated if the surface of the earth were horizontal and none of the water were lost as runoff, evaporation or absorbed into the ground.”
In her post Ward says, “And a quick shout-out to Dean (Miller) from Operations — we talked Tuesday, and his memory was bang on when he said there hadn’t been a December like this since 1991. This was a massive volume of snow, and our crews are actively working every day to keep up, stay safe, and keep the community moving.”
In a follow up, Ward tells The Leader, “The data is all publicly available. It’s just not compiled in the correct format that would make it understandable … I only use December to February because November and March typically have quite a bit of rainfall and the precipitation data is presented as a whole and not separated out versus snow and rain. I wanted to have the impact of just the total snowfall.”
The Decembers to Februaries with more snow than December 2025 were 2002-03, 2014-15, 2007-08, and 2008-09.
The week of January 12 to 16, town crews were busy hauling away piles of snow from residential areas. In a normal year, snow is only trucked out of the downtown core and cul de sacs. Town staff also worked to open up storm drains so that the water could run off rather than flood the roadways. By January 15, most town streets had very little snow on them and the piles on the sides were much smaller than at the start of the week.
In a news release, M.D. of Lesser Slave River Reeve Murray Kerik thanked M.D. staff for the work clearing snow during December and fixing water line breaks in Smith and Flatbush.
He says, “Speaking not only as reeve, but as a fellow resident, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to our M.D. staff who have gone above and beyond to keep our municipality safe and connected throughout this challenging winter season.”
The M.D. of Opportunity also had a lot of snow in December.
At the Jan. 12 meeting, council thanked administration for the hard work keeping the roads as clear as possible as the snow fell and asked various questions about the plan for removing piles of snow and for flood mitigation.
