Why the sun prefers to shine on the Prairies in Canada
CBC
CBC Alberta and Saskatchewan have teamed up for a new pilot series on weather and climate change on the Prairies. Meteorologist Christy Climenhaga will bring her expert voice to the conversation to help explain weather phenomena and climate change and how it impacts everyday life.
If you are looking to catch some rays in Canada, your best bet is to head to the Prairies.
Southern Saskatchewan and Alberta lead the country in sunshine, with many communities seeing more than 2,400 hours annually according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. To put that in perspective, some areas along the Pacific coast see only 1,200 to 1,400 hours of bright sunshine per year.
We enjoy more hours of sun because, simply put, the prairie climate is drier.
Areas close to big bodies of water get much more cloud cover and precipitation with all of that moisture-rich air, like the atmospheric river events we see in B.C.
Edmonton sees an average of 446 millimetres of precipitation a year with Calgary close behind at 419 millimetres. Regina and Saskatoon get 390 millimetres and 354 millimetres respectively.
Those numbers pale in comparison to Vancouver where it's normal to see 1,189 millimetres of precipitation in a year.
Without that consistent cloud cover and wet weather, the Prairies get a lot of sunshine.
That abundance of sun is the reason the Prairies are seeing a significant boost in a rapidly developing solar power industry.
A number of large solar projects are already underway to meet this potential, including the Travers Solar Project in Lomond, Alta., and a proposed solar farm near the Edmonton International Airport.
There are a number of reasons the Prairies are so dry, but at the centre, as in real estate, it's all about location.
The western Prairies are a long way from any significant source of moisture. The closest source is the Pacific Ocean but that moisture has quite a journey to get to Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Though Pacific moisture can make it to the Prairies, it has to pass a big obstacle. That brings us to our second reason for our sunny weather.
The western Prairies sit in what we call a rain shadow.
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