As the air finally warms up frost is left behind in the upper neighbourhoods of Kamloops Monday morning.
(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)
December 09, 2013 - 4:37 PM
THOMPSON-OKANAGAN – More than a week after an Arctic front left unbearably cold temperatures behind we are finally starting to warm up. By the weekend temperatures should reach above 0 C.
Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist said cloud cover acts as a 'blanket' to help warm up the region in the winter. The cloud cover should help us get out of the cold snap and into above normal temperatures.
Kamloops has been the coldest in the region dropping as low as -20.8 C this past weekend. In total, five days in a row were so cold the high didn't even reach the normal seasonal low of -6 C. By Saturday the city should see a high of 3 C and lows will only be -1 C.
Normal highs for Vernon, Kelowna and Penticton at this time of year are 0 C with lows of -4 C and while this week is starting with highs of around -5 C they will warm up to 4 C by Sunday, alongside lows of only 0 C.
Vernon and Kelowna saw six straight days of the daily high coming in lower than the seasonal normal low, while Penticton saw five straight days. Vernon saw temperatures dip as low as -16.7 C, Kelowna hit -18.3 C and Penticton got as low as -13.8 C on the weekend.
Kamloops could see snow a couple days this week. Vernon, Kelowna and Penticton could all see snow almost every day through Saturday.
While we talk a lot about seasonal normals, and how close we are to them, Lundquist warned that normal high and low temperatures listed in the Environment Canada data are actually not normal at all.
“Normal for us in British Columbia is either a little warmer than that a lot of the time or a lot colder some of the time,” he said. “The normals are not the likely scenario.”
Many people will be happy with a 'little warmer' than normal, instead of a lot colder.
To contact a reporter for this story, email jstahn@infotelnews.ca, call 250-819-3723 or tweet @JennStahn.
News from © iNFOnews, 2013