If you wanted to blame the pre-Christmas cold snap on someone, all indications are it was coming from Santa.Just before Christmas, the North Okanagan experienced more than a week of temperatures dipping below the -20 C mark. The cause was a direct line of flows coming down from the North Pole.
“It’s normal to have temperatures below -20 but to have a week straight of this?” said Gabor Fricska, Environment Canada meteorologist out of Kelowna.
In fact, Saturday’s low of -27.8 broke an 87-year-old record for Vernon. The coldest it’s been on Dec. 20 before that was -27.2, in 1921.
Normal temperatures for this time of year are around the -1 (highs) and -5 (lows) range.
So for those residents wondering if the temperatures are even close to normal, the evidence points to no.
“It’s unusual to have 10 days of this kind of weather, being this cold,” said Fricska. “When you’re breaking records that are almost 100 years old.”
But there is relief today and in the days ahead.
“It’s still going to be below normal but not massively below normal like what we’ve seen,” said Fricska. “With the temperatures we’ve seen it’s hard to get rid of it completely.”
The change in the weather comes from flows that have switched from the north to now coming off the Pacific Ocean.
“Day time highs should be hovering a little over freezing,” said Fricska.
Aside from what January could bring, he adds: “I think we’re done with the minus 20s.”
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