The colder than normal weather seen across BC is causing many towns and cities to break, or get close to their cold weather records.
According to Environment Canada Meteorologist Philippe-Alain Bergeron, Prince George broke a record Sunday night by reaching a low of -40.7, where the previous record was -40, set back in 1933.
“This morning (Monday) it looks like it’s the coldest temperature that’s been registered for December 27th at Prince George Airport at the current location, so -38.7. And we have the previous record of -37.8 in 1971.”
Bergeron said climatologists are still verifying that, as a similar location in Prince George recorded -42.2 back in 1933.
He added that the recent weather is quite notable, even if other areas in the province haven’t broken any records today:
- Smithers hit -34.1 as the low, with the record being -37.1 in 1996.
- Burns Lake hit -36.4 as the low, with -40.1 being the record in 1996.
- Williams Lake and Quesnel both hold a record of just under -38 in 1996, with Quesnel reaching -37.8 this morning, and Williams Lake reaching -35.7.
- Vanderhoof hit -40.1 this morning, but 1996 still proved to be a colder year, with a record of -43.
Bergeron said he was pretty confident that the colder than normal weather will still be around the rest of the week, but we won’t see quite as frigid temperatures as we are now.
“For once we can say this with near 100% confidence, yes it will be significantly colder than normal for the entire week.”
“It’s on the order of 10 or 15 degrees below normal, not quite as brutally cold as these numbers we’ve just been talking about,” added Bergeron.