What makes a Chinook different from a warm day?

Chinook air has crossed the Rockies and descended, which warms it and dries it out. So it arrives warm, unusually dry, and on a strong west wind. A mild afternoon with damp, still air is not a Chinook, however quickly the temperature rose.

How fast can a Chinook change the temperature?

Very fast. On 8 January 2024 Calgary rose 16°C in six hours as a Chinook front came through, with the wind veering westerly and the air drying out within two hours.

Where in Alberta do Chinooks happen?

Southern Alberta and the foothills — Calgary, Lethbridge, Red Deer and Medicine Hat, and the communities along the mountains. They do not meaningfully reach Edmonton or northern Alberta.

Southern Alberta

Is a Chinook blowing?

The warm, dry wind that comes down off the Rockies and can lift Calgary 20 degrees in an afternoon. This page checks whether one is actually happening — right now, from live conditions.

Conditions observed 4:15 p.m.

A Chinook is blowing. Calgary is 27°C, on a W wind at 19 km/h, and the air is dry — the signature of a Chinook.

Calgary27°C
Chinook
Calgary is 27°C, on a W wind at 19 km/h, and the air is dry — the signature of a Chinook.
26° dry · W 19 km/h
Lethbridge26°C
Lethbridge is 26°C on a SW wind — not a downslope westerly.
21° dry · SW 39 km/h
Medicine Hat29°C
Medicine Hat is 29°C, but the wind is light.
19° dry · W 13 km/h
Red Deer17°C
Red Deer is 17°C on a westerly, but the air is too humid for a Chinook.
5° dry · WSW 35 km/h

What counts as a Chinook here

A warm spell is not a Chinook. Chinook air has crossed the Rockies and descended, which warms it and dries it out — so this page asks for three things at once, all measured at the airport weather station:

Dry air — the temperature at least 12°C above the dew point.
Wind — at least 15 km/h.
From the west — blowing down off the mountains, not up from the south.

All three have to hold. Temperature alone is not enough and gets it wrong often: on 20 January 2025 Calgary rose from −19°C to −5°C in six hours, the biggest jump of the month — and it was a cold snap breaking, not a Chinook. The wind was light and the air was damp.

This page reports a Chinook that is happening now. It does not forecast one. Conditions from Environment and Climate Change Canada; thresholds were set by checking them against four winter months of Calgary observations.

The 2026–27 season so far

Nothing counted yet. Chinook season runs from October through April, and this counter fills in from the first day of it.

Counted from our own saved conditions, one reading a day at about 4:15 p.m., so this is days the afternoon reading met the test rather than every Chinook. One that arrived overnight and faded by mid-afternoon will not appear, and consecutive days count as a single Chinook rather than several.

Current conditions from Environment and Climate Change Canada, used under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Chinooks are a southern and foothills phenomenon, so only the cities where they actually occur are shown — Edmonton and the north are not part of the Chinook belt.