A group of geese sunbathe on the beach at Riverside Park in Kamloops.

(GLYNN BROTHEN / iNFOnews.ca)

THOMPSON-OKANAGAN - We saw several high temperatures records broken over the weekend and while the record breaking weather is likely over, the warm temperatures should stick around a while longer.

Lisa Coldwells of Environment Canada says looking into the early part of March arctic air will stay on the other side of the Rockies and mild conditions should continue throughout B.C.

“There will be generally mild conditions over normals, but not record highs,” she says, adding the Thompson-Okanagan regions should see temperatures several degrees above seasonal normals.

Over the Valentine's Day weekend Penticton and Kelowna set new high temperature records and that warm weather has continued this week. Coldwells notes there will be a bit of a ‘blip’ this weekend when temperatures are expected to dip to around seasonal normals of 3 Celsius to 5 C and we may see a bit of rain here in the Interior.

“The province stays under the influence of a broad scale upper ridge,” she notes, adding, “for the prolonged stretch, it’s nice pseudo-spring weather.”

The higher sun is quickly warming up the temperatures and even the low clouds that tend to fill the valleys at this time of year will soon not be able to stick around all day because it gets burnt off by the solar warmth.

While we will not be hitting high temperature records in the coming weeks, record temperatures range up to nearly 20 C at this time of year, Coldwells does note it has been several years since we have seen this type of prolonged weather pattern. The last time we had a dominant prolonged upper ridge was during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

“We did have a prolonger upper ridge during the 2010 Olympics with similar weather, just above normal,” she says. “It’s very dominant and won’t let any major rain systems through. Kind of like a giant umbrella protecting the areas it’s over top of from any other systems.”

Meanwhile the warm weather has been a blessing for local golf courses. Many have started planning for an earlier start to the season, if they haven’t already opened.

It is still too early to tell what type of impact the warmer weather will have on snowpacks and potential flooding, though forecasters have said localized flooding is possible.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Jennifer Stahn at jstahn@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724. To contact an editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

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