Cold temperature records broken in B.C. Thursday
Credit to Author: Tiffany Crawford| Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:43:13 +0000
If you left the house in the wee hours Thursday morning in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley chances are it felt like winter.
The temperature was a frosty – 0.7 C at Vancouver International Airport early Thursday, breaking a 1916 record of – 0.6 C.
It was the first time since 1966 that temperatures in Vancouver have dipped below zero in the first two weeks of October, said Armel Castellan, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
He said the clear weather is radiating some of the heat away, but it won’t last. Temperatures are expected to return to seasonal norms when the clouds roll in on Saturday.
Abbotsford also recorded – 0.4 C early Thursday, breaking a 2008 record of – 0.1 C, while Victoria tied a 1979 cold temperature record of zero degrees. B.C.’s capital city also set a cold record on Wednesday at 0.6 C, smashing the 1.7 C set in 1948.
Average temperatures for October in Vancouver are maximum highs of 14 C and minimum lows of 7 C.
Castellan said this freezing event likely doesn’t indicate a colder than normal winter. If anything, meteorological indicators suggest that B.C.’s South Coast could experience a slightly warmer than normal start to winter in the last couple of months of the year.
As for last month, it was the 18th warmest September on record in Vancouver with average temperatures of 15.6 C, compared with the normal 14.9 C. It was also significantly wetter than normal, with 122 millimetres of rain falling on the region, compared with the normal average of 51 millimetres.
Globally, September was the hottest month, tying a record set in 2016, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a group that tracks worldwide temperatures. The group said it was 0.57 C warmer than the average from 1981 to 2010.
Castellan noted that overall Thursday’s swing into freezing weather in Metro Vancouver is fairly insignificant.
“As the climate warms we are breaking more warmer records than cold,” he said.
The below zero weather won’t continue on the long weekend in the region. Environment and Climate Change Canada is forecasting a chance of showers on Saturday, and 12 C, mainly cloudy and 13 C on Sunday, and then a mix of sun and cloud for the holiday Monday, with a high of 14 C and a low of 7 C.
Meantime, while Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley saw record cold temperatures, they were not as cold as parts of the province. Clinton, for example, set a record -10.3 C on Wednesday and Smithers was -8.3 C. Prince George on Thursday was -2 C, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.
ticrawford@postmedia.com