We’ve been hearing that it was the coldest March in 50 years up here in the north.

From: https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weather/forecasts/locked-in-the-freezer-northern-canada-just-saw-its-coldest-march-in-50-years

But was it in Dawson City? Was it really the coldest March in 50 years!?

To answer this, I went to my AI tools, Claude and ChatGPT, and threw some climate data at it.

Which resulted in about 5 hours of aggravation when my AI tools burned through tokens, Claude made me wait 4 hours to rate limit my efforts, and both gave me different conclusions over and over, while I chased data sets for it from Environment Canada. I also had a memory stick of Dawson City historical weather data from my Uncle Joe V. and used it as a data source too (thanks Joe!).

In the end, it boiled down, finally, to an answer. Or I gave up. Brace yourself…..

It was the coldest March in Dawson City, Yukon in recorded history.

The Data

Usually by late March, temperatures should be approaching freezing. This year, they weren’t even close.

Some Dawson City temperature facts for March 2026:

• March 2026 monthly mean: −23.1 °C — that’s 10.5 °C below the 1991–2021 normal of −12.6 °C, which is a massive anomaly
• Coldest day: March 1, with a low of −44.5 °C and a daily mean of −35.9 °C
• Warmest day: March 31 at a mean of −12.9 °C — which, strikingly, is still colder than the historical average for the whole month
• Every single day of the month was below normal
• There were two brutal cold spells: early March (Mar 1–6, lows −43 to −44.5 °C) and a second punch mid-month (Mar 9–12, lows −38 to −40 °C)

Part of what makes the data analysis tricky. There isn’t one consistent temperature recording station in Dawson. It’s been in the river valley in town, it’s been at the airport, but not in one place consistently.

Records from two nearby Environment Canada stations — one downtown (1901–1975) and one at the airport (1976–present) — both tell the same story: March 2026’s mean temperature of −23.1 °C appears to be the coldest March in over 120 years of Dawson City records, surpassing the previous mark of −21.7 °C set in 1902. The three years both stations overlapped (1976–78) showed temperature differences of less than 0.4 °C.

The March Records for Cold

The all-time top 10 coldest Marches in Dawson City history (comparing monthly mean temperatures):

1. 2026: −23.1 °C ← new all-time record (by 1.4°C)
2. 1902: −21.7 °C
3. 1919: −21.0 °C
4. 1918: −20.9 °C
5. 2007: −20.8 °C
6. 1922: −20.0 °C
7. 1951: −19.8 °C
8. 1972: −19.5 °C
9. 1907 & 1935: −19.4 °C (tied)

Some more AI-produced, mediocre charts:

Let’s lay out the mean monthly temperature for every March we could find data for:

A bit more about March 2026:

What does this all mean for our spring river break-up? Will we be crossing the Yukon River’s ice road in May? Will the ferry get in before June?

🤷‍♀️ I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!!

In 1902, which had the second coldest March on record, the river broke on May 11.