Keep an eye on the temperatures because we could be in for a historic 4 days… and hey, the CBC is even paying attention to us!

As you know we set an alltime record yesterday the 27th of July.

Today even though the result isn’t posted on their webpage I’m sure we’ll have set a record for the 28th of July.

If the forecasted high of 40C comes true tomorrow, then another record will likely fall.

And Thursday with its 35C record could set a record as well. I will go through later tonight and see what the highest temps for each of those days are and post them here.

The holy grail (if you really want to call it that!) will be that magic 41.7C mark. If the Airport goes above that, then it will be an alltime record for any date since records began in 1904.

Stay Cool! And if you’re in Port Alberni, we are finally on water restrictions. Every 2nd day… Odd/Even.. watering only between 6-10AM and 6-10PM.

UPDATE 4: We have a 3 Day streak going – And extending our heatwave

The Hottest temp for:
July 27: New Record set, 38.5C at the Airport!
July 28: 37.5C in 1998 at Robertson Creek (It’s official, we beat that too, 39.8C)
July 29: 37.8C in 1971 at Robertson Creek (beat it! 40.0C at the airport!)
July 30: 40.6C in 1965 at McCoy Lake (Nope didn’t beat it… 36.6C.. the streak ends)

According to the AVTimes on the 28th, David Jones of Environment Canada used a heatwave definition of being over 32C for a long period… so I modified my list of heat waves accordingly but the top is still 12 days.

That would mean our current official heatwave started on Saturday July 25 (click to see this months value) and so far looks like this:

Saturday, July 25: 34.4C
Sunday, July 26: 35.0C
Monday, July 27: 38.5C
Tuesday, July 28: 39.8C
Wednesday, July 29: 40.0C
Thursday, July 30: 36.6C

UPDATED We could get to 11 days if we beat Tuesdays 31.
Forecast:
Friday, July 31: 35C
Saturday, August 1: 34C
Sunday, August 2: 34C
Monday, August 3: 33C
Tuesday, August 4: 31C

That will give us a total of 10 days of at least 32C. We’ve never had a 10 day streak. We’ve had 8, 9 and 12.

It was reported on the news that Port Alberni set a new record at the airport for this day. But that, I believe, is only since the station at the Airport has been there… so I did some digging in the archives here (i love this stuff)!

Turns out that today was a record high for the new weather station at the Airport (since 1992)… and, as far as I can see from the EC records files I have here going back to 1905, it is an alltime record for any EC reporting station in the Alberni Valley* for July 27.

The closest runner up.
The Station at Robertson Creek hit 38.0C on July 27, 1998.

*There have been 10 stations in the Alberni Valley, roughly in order of first record… Beaver Creek, Lupsi Cupsi (near Catalyst), Port Alberni City Hall, Redford, Robertson Creek, Shuhum Creek, Cox Lake, McCoy Lake, Old Airport Somass, Automated New Airport.

Looking at the forecast here today, we might just manage a sweep of all 7 days of this week hitting above 30 degrees.

The end of July and beginning of August is generally our hottest and driest time in Port Alberni. We’re certainly maintaining that trend, though personally, I don’t remember a setup like this.

Anyone else who is maybe a little more wise and aged than I have a correlating Alberni heatwave experience?

There are severe water restrictions in place for Tofino and a water shortage seems guaranteed. We can expect water restrictions in Port Alberni likely by the end of this week if this forecast holds though only stage one (watering even/odd days). We are blessed with ample water here.

You would think this would be the case for the entire Island, but we really are unique in this respect, and very lucky.

Enjoy the weather! Stay cool and hydrated!

UPDATE Friday July 24: Well we haven’t reached our forecast 30C the past couple days, so no sweep yet, but judging by the forecast we still have a serious chance of doing it over the next week or two! 39C on Tuesday. That’s a mere 102F for you not-so-oldtimers out there! :D

Remember to conserve water and only water during the morning or late evening hours… whenever the graph below shows no bars is the best time to water!

UPDATE: Friday Night —– LOOKING INTO THE PAST OF HEATWAVES

Ok, I’ve done a little research going into all of the Environment Canada archives spanning 12 different stations around the Valley, from 1904 to 2007

Here’s what I found… this is very unofficial, the stations were spread out but most of the records came from a few stations. I don’t guarantee that I missed a heatwave or two, but I did get the maximum temperature for sure.

We’ve had around 24 heatwaves in that period. My personal, and unofficial, definition of a heatwave is thus: A period of high temps peaking at at least 38C (100F), and remaining over 30C for more than 5 days straight at one of the stations.

Our Highest temperature ever recorded at an Environment Canada weather station was at the original EC weather station in Beaver Creek. It recorded a temperature of 41.7C on July 10, 1926. It actually only got up to 37 at the Port Alberni City Hall station during that short, 4 day, heat event though, so perhaps that reading is a little suspect.

The runners up are 41.1C August 18, 1908 in Beaver Creek and again 41.1C at old City Hall July 15, 1941.

Alberniweathers top temperature was 40.9C on July 21, 2006, but again, my station wasn’t placed in the best spot, so maybe a bit of overshoot there as well. Thankfully that is now fixed.

The longest heatwave:
We’ve had a few of at least 10 days in length.. including one some might remember here from July 24 to August 2 1965 that peaked at 40.6C at McCoy Lake, 39.4 at Robertson Creek hatchery and 38.3 at Redford School.

But we have a tie for the longest heatwave ever at 12 straight days over 30C…. the first way back between August 4 and 15 1920 when Beaver Creek reached 38.3 and City Hall peaked at 35C, and one between August 8 and 19, 1967… when McCoy Lake peaked at 38.3C

So what about Climate Change you ask? Your big numbers all look to be way back in the past…

If we look at the 46 years of 1904 and 1950, there were 11 heatwaves, 6 happening in the first dozen years to 1916, this might be due to poor instrumentation or record keeping back then. After 1950 we have had 14… 2 per decade, until the 1990s when we had 3 and again this decade we’ve had 3 to 2007. Huge difference, not really, I would say marginal but worth looking at more scientifically.

Getting back to our current bout of heat. Really, we have nothing to complain about, our current temperatures aren’t out of the ordinary… it will be when we hit that magic 38C/100F that this could get interesting… and if any station in the valley hits 40C, then you know we’re getting into all time record territory.

It’s going to be another hot weekend! Nothing really exciting happening in the weather. The only thing of note really is that El Nino is returning in the South Pacific . It is just on the verge of becoming a “moderate” El Nino according to Jeff Masters at Wunderblog.

And this wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone here, but June 2009 was the 2nd warmest June on record narrowly missing the top spot in 2005.

Here’s the world map for temperature anomalies, see you all on Monday!

So thanks to a commenter I discovered the latest Accuweather long range forecast from Canadian meteorologist Brett Anderson. His predictions for the Summer?

Mean pattern for the week of July 20-26
—A fairly dry, warm pattern across most of British Columbia.

The week of July 27-Aug 2
—A very warm and generally dry pattern from southern BC through the Pacific Northwest.

The week of Aug 3-9
—Temperatures above normal in the Pacific Northwest through BC, with rainfall below normal across this region, but there will be the usual share of afternoon showers and thunderstorms in the mountains.

So there you have it. Looks pretty good to me :) Hope everyone gets a little time off to enjoy it.

Oh, and before I go. To all my French speakers out there (I know I have at least one!) Vive la France! Today, July 14 is their National Holiday. I’ll be humming the Marseilles today in your honour.