Tired of all that rain and cool summer days?
You're not alone. But if you’re hoping for a quick turnaround and a blast of heat to send you scurrying for relief with a swim in the river or dunk in the lake, it’s not in the forecast just yet.
We’re in for more of the same showery weather, however, it’s not all doom and gloom.
The light rain that started coming down over the city around midday on Monday will be back with periods of rain expected on Tuesday and a high of only 19 C. Wednesday and Thursday will be mostly sunny with highs of 22 C and 23 C. But by Friday the clouds and unsettled weather will prevail with a 60 per cent chance of rain Friday, Saturday and Sunday and highs in the 19 or 20 C range. Lows will vary from 8-10 C.
In the world of Environment Canada meteorologist Bobby Sekhon, summer started June 1 and so far Prince George is following the trend being felt all over the Interior and Central Coast of the province with cooler-than-normal temperatures and very few days without at least some measureable precipitation. The high temperature this time of year averages 21 C, but in the first 15 days of the month there was on just one day in Prince George when it got into the 20s C. That was on June 10th when the high reached 21.4 C
“It’s definitely been cooler this month,” said Sekhon. “It’s been a bit flip-floppy and mostly weekends have been wet and during the week we’ve caught some breaks of some sunshine,” said Sekhon. “What we’re not seeing is any large ridge of high pressure building and that’s what usually brings the hot dry weather to B.C. and we’re just seeing any indications of that for the next week to 10 days.”
The meteorological spring - March, April and May – was on the cool side in Prince George, about 2 C cooler than average for spring, and slightly drier, with 82 per cent of the normal precipitation.
“May, we definitely started to pick up the precipitation and that has carried into June as well,” said Sekhon. “For many parts of the Interior we’re getting into the wettest time of the year. Even for Prince George, June is the wettest month of the year with an average of 65 millimetres of precipitation. This June we’ve had 54 millimetres and we’ll probably end up close to that 65 mark before June is said and done.”
On the bright side, a deeper-than normal snowpack and the cool rainy weather have dropped the forest fire hazard to the lowest notch of the scale.
“With all the COVID happening it’s certainly nice from a wildfire perspective that we’re keeping that fire index down,” said Sekhon. “Even though we are getting thunderstorms and we can see lightning starting fires, our lightning has been accompanied with precipitation this year so far and that has kind of counteracted that lightning. If we keep getting showers with lightning we should be good.”
This is Lightning Safety Week and Sekhon is preaching the motto, “When you hear the roar, go indoors,” to warn people about the risk of getting hit by lightning. Environment Canada figures that between 2002-2011 an average three Canadians died each year from lightning strikes and there were an average 125 injuries.
To reduce the risk of being hit by lightning, Environment Canada has released an app WeatherCAN for Android or Apple that uses the built-in GPS of cell phones to provide instantaneous notices of weather watches or warnings, as well as current conditions and the seven-day forecasts.
“Radar is on there, too, and that can be quite important if you’re going outside or on a bike ride,” said Sekhon. “Take a quick look at that radar to see if there any cells.”
Drier, warmer and sunnier weather is in the long-range forecast by the beginning of next week.
