Remember mid-June when we had soaring temperatures and no school because of the teacher strike?

(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)

BUT WILL BE BACK SOONER THAN YOU THINK

THOMPSON-OKANAGAN - Winter is officially here. Much of the region is covered in snow and Mother Nature decided to plunge us into a deep cold once again.

With that in mind we decided to take a look back at just how hot our summer weather was in the Thompson-Okanagan this past year.

Our heat began in early May as temperatures hit the 24 to 28 Celsius mark to kick off the month and while things cooled off to just above normal temperatures for the rest of the month, by mid-June we were ready to officially kick off summer with highs in the mid-30s.

June 15, 2014, Armstrong.

(CHARLOTTE HELSTON / iNFOnews.ca)

Canada Day was once again a hot one, with temperatures reaching the mid-30s, but that was just the beginning of a very hot spell in the region. By July 16 several weather records had been broken, Kamloops had 10 days straight of temperatures exceeding 30 C while Vernon, Kelowna and Penticton had nine straight days of 30 C plus temperatures. In total temperatures in Kamloops exceeded 30 C on 13 of the first 16 days of July, and the other three days were just shy of that mark.

July 1, 2014, Riverside Park, Kamloops.

(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)

The high temperatures in July led to Environment Canada warning people about very high UV ratings and fire danger ratings climbed to extreme in the region. The hot, dry weather had firefighters working hard to contain many small, and larger, fires in the region throughout the month as smoke lingered in the sky.

July 21, 2014, Okanagan Falls.

(MEAGHAN ARCHER / iNFOnews.ca)

A week later an intense storm ripped through the Interior, dropping as much as 20 millimetres in just 20 minutes and causing flash flooding in several areas. Kamloops and the Shuswap were among the hardest hit during the storm but we were still better off than Whistler, where Ironman Triathletes were greeted by snow on July 24.

A few days later temperatures again soared into the 30s, but that came as little surprise to meteorologist Doug Lundquist.

“It is the hottest time of year, the last half of July and first half of August,” Lundquist noted at the time. “The last day of July and first day of August is the peak.”

July 2014, Boyce-Gyro Park, Kelowna.

(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)

Mother Nature still had some extreme heat in store for us though. By mid-August temperatures were again in the mid-30s and on Aug. 27 Vernon temperatures reached 33.5 C, setting a new record. The rest of the region came close to record highs as well, reaching 32 C to 34 C that day.

The first weekend in September temperatures again reached the 30 C mark, causing some cities to reopen water parks to help residents keep cool and on Sept. 19 we were graced with yet another hot spell as temperatures reached up to 28 C, about six to eight degrees higher than seasonal normals. A week later we were again above the 20 C mark, but temperatures were definitely cooling down.

Sept. 5, 2014, Civic Plaza, Vernon.

(CHARLOTTE HELSTON / iNFOnews.ca)

While summer was over we were not done with near record-breaking weather just yet. In mid-October temperatures again soared into the 20s, falling just short of records in much of the region and mid-Decemeber saw three days of new record highs set with temperatures reaching the 10 C to 14 C mark throughout the region.

While quite a bit of snow, and the temperatures, has fallen since mid-December take solace in the fact that based on 2014 we could again be experiencing summer-like weather here in the Interior in five short months.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Jennifer Stahn at jstahn@infonews.ca or call 250-819-3723. To contact an editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

News from © iNFOnews, 2015