Cold December temperatures now a distant memory
By Lone Sheep Publishing
December’s cold weather seems like a distant memory as temperature have warmed considerably for January the latest weather synopsis from the Southeast Fire Centre revealed.
While current temperature hovers above zero, reaching a high of plus 5C Sunday, in December most days experienced snow and below-average temperatures starting on the first of the month and ending December 25 due to a prevailing cool northwesterly flow aloft.
“One daily minimum temperature record was tied (-20.8 degrees on the December 22nd) and two new minimum daily mean temperatures (daily mean temperature is the average between the day’s max and min temperatures) were broken December 19th and December 22nd,” said BC Wildfire Service fire forecaster Jesse Ellis in the monthly weather synopsis.
“(These lower temperatures were due to) a surge of Arctic air into the West Kootenay also brought strong and gusty winds from the north and north-northwest.”
The lowest recorded temperature of the month was minus 21.4 degrees before sunrise on the December 23rd as partly clear skies and easing winds coincided with one of the longest nights of the year — allowing for more prolonged cooling.
“A significant shift in the large-scale pattern occurred between December 23rd and December 26th as a maritime airmass pushing in from the southwest brought more than twenty (20) degrees of warming as precipitation transitioned from snow to freezing rain to rain,” Ellis said.
“A prevailing westerly flow maintained unseasonably mild temperatures with precipitation each day through to the end of the month.”
While freezing rain made up part of the total 20.4mm of rain that was recorded on December 26th, this was probably the greatest one-day rainfall event for this location in over a year.
Total precipitation for the month was within 10% of normal and the mean monthly temperature was 2.6 degrees cooler than average.
However, the temperature quickly shifted on January 1, allowing participants in the Polar Bear Plunge 2023 to be greeted with a balmy plus 4C temperature for the dip into Kootenay Lake.
And monsoon-like weather has continued with most of the snowpack reduced considerably in the valley bottoms.
