It’s clear Maple and Waffles are loving the warm, almost spring-like weather at Edmonton’s Buena Vista Dog Park on Wednesday, along with their owner.
“I’m really enjoying it, you know, it’s after the cold weather we had around Christmas time and whatnot. It’s good to have this sunshine,” said Richard Hernder, Maple and Waffles’ owner.
Waffles (left) and Maple (right) play in the snow on Jan. 14, 2026. (Leo Cruzat, CityNews)
Cheryl Cruickshank, an Edmontonian, said, “It’s been fabulous. It’s such a relief. It feels good on my old bones. I need that sunshine to keep me going.”
With a daytime high of over 10 degrees on Wednesday, Edmonton broke the daily record for the third day in a row.
But Environment Canada says the warm spell, with temperatures above zero lasting into next week, is not out of the ordinary. Adding fluctuating weather is normal in early January, with a cool down expected.
“We’re actually going to likely fall well short of the record warmth for January on a number of different metrics. The average temperature is currently about 5 degrees colder than the warmest January on record in 2001,” said Justin Shelley, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.
Shelley reminding we started January with a cold snap, and similar temperatures are expected next week.
But for now, Edmontonians are enjoying what they can. Skater Rick McHutchion was glad to find an outdoor rink open, as the City forced the closure of several because of melting conditions.
“We like winter sports, so we’re one of the few who, when it’s plus nine, we kind of go, ‘Well, okay, I grab it when it’s there. But you know we like to skiing skate as well. So we’d like to ski and skate as well,” said McHutchion.
Edmonton’s ice castles are still closed. The melty mess is making it too slippery to open. Over at the Edmonton Ski Club, they’re open, but the warm-up makes for more work.
“If we did not groom the hill this literally by the end of the day, it could be a sheet of ice because it hasn’t been it hasn’t been stirred up. It hasn’t been changed at all. It just continues to pack,” said Greg Suess, the general manager of the Edmonton Ski Club.
As for drivers making their way through the slushy mess, many are ending up at local car washes, which are seeing a boom in people looking for an appointment.
“So we’ve actually noticed an uptick in our car washes and also our car detail … It depends on how many days you may ask, but in the past few days, we did three washes yesterday, and we’re doing three to four today,” said Henry Grover, the co-owner of Attn Automobile Dealer.
But this warm spell is not expected to last. Any slush left over will freeze with forecasts for frigid minus-20 weather mid-to-late next week.
