El Nino causes confusion in backyard ice rinks across Canada

El Nino has thrown Canada's backyard ice rinks into aBizarro World, causing ideal early-winter skating conditions in the Prairies and soupy ponds east of the Great Lakes.

"Where I am it's great weather for having outdoor swimming pools," said Robert McLeman in Waterloo, Ont.

• Have you or your neighbours made anawesomeice rink? Send your photos tocalgaryphotos@cbc.ca.

The professor of geography and environmental studies at Wilfrid Laurier University is one of the founders of RinkWatch, a website allowingpeople topin their neighbourhood ice rinks on a map, and update the conditions all winter.

"Then what we do is we pool that data with rink watchers across North America and we use it to track a number of different things relating to winter weather conditions and climate trends."

After four seasons,McLemansays,he and his team have figured out the "magic"formula, in terms of temperature, to produce the perfect outdoor ice rink.

"Several nights of 10 C or colder to get a good base and then you need a minimum of 5 C temperatures on a daily basis," he said.

McLemansays thattypically, those perfect ice rink conditions roll into Ontario and Quebec in late November or early December allowing people in those parts to skate outdoors until the end of February.

But instead, ElNinocast an early cold spell over Alberta where backyard skating doesn't usually get going until January.

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The firstice rinkrecorded this season in Canada on RinkWatchas being easyto skate onwas in Fort McMurray, Alta., and McLeman says he's seeing good conditions in rinks across Calgary.

But he doesn't expect it to last.Not if El Nino has itsway.

"You'll probably see a lot more freezes and thaws this year than you typically will, which makes it frustrating to maintain a rink especially if you don't have a watertight liner underneath it."

The future of Canada's ice rinks

The founders of RinkWatch have been watching rinks across North America since 2012, and recently crunched the first two years of data.

By combining this information with daily temperature simulations based on a global climate model, researchers projected that the number of skating days willdecline by 34 per cent in Toronto and Montreal by 2090.

"For the city of Calgary, we found that by the end of the century, it will will lose 20 per cent of skating days," said McLeman.

"Not as many as I feared. So you know, the glass is either half full or half empty."

• Number of annual outdoor skating days to shrink up to 30% by end of century

Looking forward, RinkWatch wants to getskaters inScandinavia, Russia and Northern China to pintheir backyard rinks on theirmap.

"We got our first rink this year from Estonia, of all places."

What's up with this warm weather?

9 years ago

Duration 4:07

Interview with Environment Canada's senior climatologist Dave Phillips