Edmonton has broken a record for the wettest summer on record — and it isn’t even August.
It’s been two months of nearly back-to-back severe thunderstorms: June had 15 days with storms and this month has had 19, as of Monday, July 27.
Brian Proctor, meteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the wettest summer on record in the capital city was more than 70 years ago.
In 1953, the city received 417 millimetres of rain from June through August.
So typically, our summers, if we look at the three months of June, July and August, we see on average about 213.3 millimetres,” Proctor said in an interview.
“But this year, it has been exceptionally wet and exceptionally stormy.”
Between the beginning of June and Tuesday, the region has been saturated by 580 millimetres of rain and July isn’t over yet.
The typical monthly average in summer is between 70 and 80 millimetres, with an average annual rainfall of 423 millimetres.
A record-breaking amount of rain fell in June — over 260 mm — breaking a 112-year-old record.
Edmonton is also on track to record the wettest July — and month — on record.
The record for precipitation for July is 282 millimetres set in 1901 and, as of Tuesday, the city has recorded 260.7 millimetres, Proctor said.
Environment Canada has been keeping weather data from Edmonton since the 1880s.
Edmonton is now in the midst of its rainiest year in over a century, and third-wettest year on record.
The wettest overall year for Edmonton was 1900 at 745.1mm. The second-wettest was 1901, at 699 mm, according to weather specialist Phil Darlington.
Since the beginning of 2026, the Edmonton region has recorded 655.7 mm of precipitation — both heavy snowfalls in the winter and rain now — and the year is far from over.
More storms are forecast for the coming weeks in what has become Edmonton’s summer of soggy misery. Proctor said all the moisture in the area is also feeding into a cycle of thunderstorms.
“One of the things to think about for thunderstorms: moisture is like gasoline,” he said.
“The more moisture you have available, the more severe the storms can be.”
Frequent intense storms have routinely flooded roads, side streets and basements, cancelled shows and events while spawning thick clouds of mosquitos.
The summer deluge has affected commuters. The city said Tuesday that several roads remained closed as crews worked to clean up downed trees and deal with localized flooding.
It said a storm Monday was the city’s sixth major weather event since June.
All the water has closed visitor sites, including the Muttart Conservatory. The Telus World of Science was expected to stay closed until late this year to fix water damage.
Elk Island National Park, east of the city, closed over the weekend as crews worked to clear downed trees, fix damaged fencing and clean up debris.
Edmonton children experiencing ‘skeeter syndrome’
The swelling mosquito population has also led to more hospital visits for children experiencing skeeter syndrome — an intense, localized allergic reaction to mosquito saliva.
Dr. Andrew Dixon, an emergency room physician at Stollery Children’s Hospital, said it has been treating five or six children a day with the condition.
He added that skeeter syndrome is more common in children and appears worse in the beginning of the season.
“Your body kind of gets used to it over time and stops reacting as much,” Dixon said. He said the condition isn’t dangerous and antihistamines are effective in treating it.
Mike Jenkins, a senior scientist with the City of Edmonton, said the number of mosquitoes in the city in mid-July is 15 times higher compared with this time last year.
“It’s definitely the largest number of mosquitoes we’ve had in the last decade,” Jenkins said.
“But that being said, it also has been one of our driest decades on record — until now.”
— With files from Karen Bartko and Phil Darlington,