When will spring come to Almaty?

Jusan Analytics team conducted a statistical analysis of the seasonal climatic change in the Southern capital to understand when winter ends. A stable positive average daily air temperature was set as a criterion for the spring onset. And for the analysis, we used the air temperature in Almaty city data of Kazhydromet RSE for 2000-2022, collected 8 times a day with a 3-hour interval.

Spring as scheduled

If we consider the average figures for the last 22 years, then the beginning of spring in Almaty falls on February 27, which almost coincides with the calendar change of the season. For comparison, the climactic beginning of spring falls on March 29 in Astana.

The air temperature in Almaty will gradually approach the spring temperature by the end of February. A positive daytime temperature is usually observed in the next 13 days, and for at least 6 days the air temperature will be above +5° C.

Not the last chord of winter

At the same time, there will be at least 1 cooling period with a 90% probability when the night temperature drops below -5°C by the end of this month. And based on the results of our analysis, the most frequent cold snap takes place from February 8 to February 15, and the average value of the minimum night air temperature during this period is -10.5° C.

There is also a 47% probability that there will be 2 periods of temperature drop below -5° C in February, and only a 14% probability that each of the remaining weeks of the month will be cold.

Early or late spring

The beginning of Almaty climatic spring in different years varies from February 20 to March 20. At the same time, we can note some dynamics of the early and late spring changes. And according to our forecast, we are still in the early spring period in 2023.

Also, we noticed an interesting correlation with the climatic spring onset comparing the periods. The pattern is traced during considering periods from 2000 to 2013 and from 2014 to 2023.

So, the correlation coefficient is 0.74 (smoothed from outliers*) – this is a fairly high indicator, showing a certain cycle. And therefore, we assume that the beginning of the climatic spring in the following years will occur by the emerging trend, but with a slight shift in dates in Almaty.

The difference in the spring onset in these periods is average of 4 days, which may be due to a general increase in the average annual air temperature in Almaty by 0.5° C in 10 years. At the same time, the average temperatures of February and March are growing faster (+1.3° C per decade), according to the “Kazhydromet” RSE.

* correlation considering the logarithm of incoming data