Residents of Prince George who have lived in the city for more than 40 years are laughing heartily as the younger generations shiver and chatter away about the recent "cold snap."
This would be the current string of sunny days where it has been hitting about -15 for a high and then tumbling to about -25 or so overnight.
Those longtime residents of this region have another word for this weather.
They call it winter.
As in, this is pretty ordinary winter weather for Prince George and there's nothing extraordinary about it.
In fact, this is the weather Prince George used to be proud of. In the Okanagan Valley, the clouds would roll in and stay there for the winter, a suffocating grey blanket that hid the sun for three or more months, with the only relief to be found at the ski resorts above the clouds. Meanwhile, central and northern B.C. would have weeks of sunshine and blue skies, with temperatures in the -10 to -20 range.
The change in the winter weather perspective in Prince George has been recent and dramatic.
Former Citizen reporter Gord Hoekstra wrote stories during the early years of the spread of the mountain pine beetle in the late 1990s. In those stories, he reported that either an early winter cold snap of about -30 for a week or a mid or late-winter -35 to -40 for about 10 days or so would have a serious effect on the pine beetle population.
In other words, just 15 years ago, readers could honestly have a realistic belief that those temperatures could happen for that length of time in the region.
Of course, that kind of weather never came and the mountain pine beetle devastated forests across central and northern B.C., sweeping east to Alberta.
The coldest it has ever been in Prince George since 2001, according to the Weather Network's historical weather data, was -37.3 C on Jan. 14, 2005. Remember that winter? Just 10 days later, on Jan. 24, the daytime high was an amazing +10.
Anyhow, it has been a long time since Prince George has seen a true "forty below."
And there was a spell in 1991, when Prince George did get some beetle-killing weather. From Jan. 2 to 4, the high didn't get above -30 and the overnight low was in the -36 to -38 range. Then, it really got cold. For four consecutive nights, it was -40 or colder, hitting -44 on Jan. 6.
But it didn't last. Just six days later, it was +3.
Those cold winters in the early 1990s stretched into the southern Interior. Back in those days, a small group of men could safely sail their ice boats on Skaha Lake, south of Penticton.
Winter does seem to be getting a little bit easier in Prince George, however, which is maybe why the current temperatures qualify as a cold snap. In 2013, there wasn't a single day when the temperature was -30 or colder and that was the first time that had happened since 2001. Unless it gets a little colder over the next few days or December has some nastiness in store, 2014 could be the second consecutive year without a -30 low.
All joking aside, winter in Prince George still deserves respect. This current cold snap is still dangerously cold. The wind chill is expected to make the forecast low of -28 feel like -36, thanks to a brisk breeze.
That's frostbite weather.
But just remember, it used to be worse.
You know, back in the day when another generation in Prince George walked to school in the winter in three feet of snow, barefoot and uphill both ways.
