If you think it's cold and snowy in Prince George now, here's a sobering thought.
Winter is just getting started and the weekend forecast calls for some bone-chilling days ahead.
And if last year was any indicator it could be even colder once February rolls around.
Snow is in the forecast for the next four days, with between 15 and 25 centimetres of snow expected before a ridge of high pressure begins to slide into the Prince George region on Saturday, bringing clear skies and lows of -31 C.
"The first storm will bring five-to-10 centimetres and by the weekend the Arctic air deepens in your area and lows will be in the minus-30s, with highs in the minus-20s Saturday to Monday," said Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist.
Forecast highs for Wednesday to Friday will be close to -10 C. The overnight low tonight will dip to-13 C, -10 C on Thursday and -22 on Friday before the snow ends and the cold weather takes hold on Saturday Highs of -21 C are predicted from Saturday-Monday, with no relief in sight well into next week. The Arctic air mass will extend as far south as the U.S. border.
Winter has been a breeze so far. The coldest days at Prince George Airport came back-to-back on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, when it hit -18.6 C, which isn't far off the -13.9 C average low for this time of year. So far this month, the overnight low of -13.5 Tuesday was the coldest it's been.
2019 was, on average, about one degree cooler than normal for Prince George. The average mean temperature was 3.4 C, compared to the average of 4.3 C. July was the warmest month, averaging 15.3 C, slightly below the historical average for the month, 15.8 C.
Not once did in the heat of last summer did the mercury reach 30 C, the first time that's happened since 2016. The three hottest days of the year for Prince George were 28 C (Aug. 7) , 27.8 C (July 22), and 26.4 C (June 12).
On the cold end of the scale, February 2019 was a brutal month with seven days of lows in the -30s, including the three coldest days of 2019, -38.6 C (Feb. 4), -33.8 (Feb. 6 and Feb. 11).
"All of Western Canada was cold in February," said Lundquist.
The coldest days came in the first couple weeks of the month, when athletes began arrive in the city to train for the World Para Nordic Ski Championships at Otway Nordic Centre. The average high in Prince George that month was -10.2 C, while the average low was -25.
Only on the last two days of February was it warm enough to melt ice and it just barely made it with highs of 1C Feb. 27 and 2C on Feb. 28. That came after a mild January with only one really cold day when it hit -25.4 C (Jan. 8).
Total precipitation for the year was 90 per cent of the average for Prince George with 532 mm falling from the sky, compared to the average on 595 mm.
After devastating wildfire seasons in 2017 and 2018, there were very few destructive weather-related incidents last year and most of the province was breathing clean air.
"For B.C, there was not a lot of fire weather, not a lot of severe weather, it seemed like a quiet year," said Lundquist.
