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Warm dry weather expected to continue next week

City will avoid choking smoke from U.S. wildfires that's now plaguing Lower Mainland
Ted Clarke
Ted Clarke
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Smoke fills the sky and blankets the Vancouver skyline, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020. Metro Vancouver has issued an air quality advisory due to the smoke from wildfires burning south of the U.S. border. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

Thirteen was not a lucky number for sun worshipers in Prince George this summer.

The months of June, July and August – otherwise known as the meteorological summer - were the 13th coldest and 13th wettest on record - great for the slugs that ravaged vegetable crops and fed on the lush vegetation, not so great for fun on the beach.

“It was definitely colder, 1 ½ degrees colder than normal for the whole summer period,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Carmen Hartt. “It was also wetter. The normal amount of precipitation is 177 millimetres for those three months and this summer we had 242. That’s 137 per cent above normal.”

The good news is the ridge of high pressure that’s been producing warm and sunny conditions in the city the past week continues to dominate the province and is not expected to weaken anytime soon. After a cool and wet start to September, temperatures will remain close to average or even a few degrees above average for most of next week, with no rain is predicted.

“One of the big signals we see is there are really warm sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific and I know that’s really far from Prince George but that does have a big influence on our weather,” said Hartt. “When we see that signal it’s a good signal for us to forecast an above-warm fall.

“We’re not going to have heat alerts but it’s a few degrees above normal for September, low- to mid-teens, and as we get to the later part of the month we could have temperatures reaching 20 C.”

While smoke from huge wildfires raging in the United States is starting to creep across the international border, resulting in poor air quality Friday in Victoria and Vancouver and the extreme southern edge of the rest of the province, Prince George will avoid that choking haze entirely, at least through the weekend.

“It is spreading northward through the weekend and the conditions are really deteriorating,” said Hartt, from her office in Richmond. “Looking at our longer-range models we do expect it to move into Alberta this weekend and into the Cariboo. I see a little of that smoke reaching Prince George on Monday but it’s not in the concern levels. You might see a bit of haze in the sky come Monday from that but it wouldn’t really affect the air quality.

“It could get worse because those fires in the States. They’re not going to have them under control and B.C. is going to be affected for the rest of the fire season.”

Today’s high will hit 22 C and rise to 21 C on Saturday. Sunday will be mostly cloudy with a high of 16 C. The sun will return on Monday with a high of 18 C, rising to 20 on Tuesday, 17 C on Wednesday on and 19 C on Thursday. Lows will range from 6C to 8C the next four nights.

Heading into Friday, the city already had five days of high temperatures 20 C or warmer, including Thursday’s 24.6 C high, the warmest yet this month.

Gardeners still waiting for their tomatoes and cucumbers to ripen won’t have to worry about frost until Tuesday night, when clear skies will allow daytime heating to escape into the upper atmosphere. You might want to cover those tender plants that night, with a low of 3 C predicted, dropping to 1 C overnight on Wednesday night – certainly cool enough to bring frost. We’ve already come close to that, on Aug. 29, when the mercury dipped to 1.9 C.

The average high temperature for this time of year is 17 C and the average low is 4.3 C.