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!
ET

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.