If you like sunshine and warm weather then Prince George is the place to be for at least the next seven days.
Environment Canada is predicting sunny skies and above-average temperatures as meteorological summer kicks in.
The change of season, as far as weather experts are concerned happened on June 1, and after a cool and blustery start for the first couple of days of the month, Prince George people can get back to enjoying the outdoors without having to bundle up.
Today’s high is expected to hit 19C and it will heat up as the week goes on with the high Wednesday and Thursday predicted to hit 21C under a mix of sun and cloud. The high pressure that makes for clear skies will settle in on the weekend with highs reaching 22C Friday, 26C Saturday and 24C on Sunday.
“The forecast is lots of sun and good temperatures too,” said Bobby Sekhon, a meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada. “We’re going to see temperatures ramp up towards the end of the week, especially on the weekend.
“We are tracking bit of an upper low system that could be coming across the area next week but there’s a lot of uncertainty around it so it’s really hard to say how cool it could get and whether there will be much precipitation from that.”
Lows will range from 7C tonight to 12C on Thursday with no frost in sight, good news for gardeners who had to endure seven days in May when the thermometer dipped below freezing mark seven times (the average is 5.4 below-zero days in May).
Temperatures are expected to return to near normal (high 19C, low 6C) next week.
May had a fair bit of unsettled weather but was only slightly wetter and cooler than average.
Prince George had 45 millimetres of precipitation, all in the form of rain. Normal for the month is 45 mm. Most of that fell on two days – May 7 (15.3 mm) and May 17 (14.1 mm).
“It wasn’t evenly distributed through the whole month,” said Sekhon. “We had some hot days followed by some cool days, so a fairly typical spring pattern - definitely no long stretches of dry hot weather like we’re looking at coming up here.”
The mean temperature at Prince George Airport for May was 9.8C (normal is 10.3C). Daytime highs averaged 17.1C and the average low was 2.6C.
The hottest day last month was May 28, when we got to 29.2C. The coldest it got was on May 5 (-2.9C).
The longterm model is suggesting a warmer and drier than normal summer (June, July and August) for the eastern half of the province, including Prince George.
That’s not good news for northeastern BC, where extended drought conditions are fuelling wildfires in the region.
Flames fanned by strong winds intensified the Summit Lake fire west of Fort Nelson on Monday, forcing closure of a section of Highway 97 between Steamboat and Summit Lake. That fire, suspected to be human caused, grew to 21 square kilometres.
That blaze is among 63 burning in the northeast region, 39 of which are out of control.
There's also some bad news on the mosquito front. Early reports are we’re in for a normal summer for the pesky critters, coming off a rare summer in 2024 when the skeeters became scarce. A lack of moisture the previous two years and a late spring freeze virtually wiped them out.
