The first snowfall of the season didn’t last long, but it gave Prince George of taste of more to come.
About two centimetres collected on the ground briefly as winds brought moisture from the south to collide with cold air that descended on Prince George under mostly clear skies overnight.
By early afternoon the snow had stopped, but more is expected tonight with an additional two centimetres predicted by Environment Canada.
The cool air over the past two days, combined with the snow, will pretty much take the life out of people’s gardens, which have been prolonged more than month beyond normal without a killing frost, made possible by an unusually warm and dry October.
According to the Prince George Airport weather station, the high temperature this month has averaged 16.1 C and the average low has been -0.1 C, well above average. On the first 18 days of October the thermometer reached at least 15C and there were three days that hit 20C or warmer – Oct. 1 (23.5 C, Oct. 3 (21 C) and Oct. 17 (21.6C).
In 1921, the city recorded its warmest October, with a mean temperature (the combined average high and low) of 7.7 C. So far, the Prince George mean this month is 8.0 C. Normal temperatures for this time of year are 6.6 C (high) and -2 C (low).
Last year, not once did we hit 15 C in October. The warmest day of the month a year ago was on Oct. 22 (14.6 C) and we dipped to a cool -11 C on Oct. 31.
Temperatures fell back to near-normal levels last week and the only precipitation the city received this month has happened over the past five days. We got 2.2 millimetres of rain on Saturday, two mm on Monday, 0.9 mm on Tuesday and whatever the total reaches today. That’s it for October, one of the driest on record so far.
More rain is in the forecast for Thursday under a mix of sun and cloud with a high of 9 C predicted. It’s not expected to drop below the freezing mark for the next four nights with lows of 1C tonight, 3 C on Thursday and Friday and a low of 7 C expected Saturday.
Highs will reach 8 or 9 C Friday, Saturday and Sunday and the overnight temperature could reach -6 by Sunday night.
Halloween trick or treaters on Monday should bundle up. No precipitation is forecast with a daytime high of 2C and a chilly low of -8 C.
The days are also getting shorter. Sunset tonight is at 6:26 p.m. and the sunrise Thursday is at 7:25 a.m. The mornings will be darker for an hour longer once we turn back the clocks when daylight savings time ends on at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 6.
