This sunny weather should continue for at least another week or maybe even two. We have a wonderful forecast just below 30 degrees. Everyone I’ve talked to lately agrees, these past days have really been perfect, not too hot, but plenty warm to do whatever you want outside and warm up the lake as well.

See? And you all thought the summer was a right off after June. ;)

Speaking of June, it won’t make you feel any better, but it’s worth noting that again, for the 4th straight month, the world set a new record for average temperature. Sea temperatures are starting to fall thanks to La Nina starting up, but they were still warm enough and land temperatures were the warmest ever. The lower atmosphere was also the 2nd warmest on record.

Here’s the anomaly (departure from “normal”) map for June:

Perhaps the most stunning thing about June was the heat waves across many parts of Asia and the Middle East. 6 countries set all time record highs, most over a rather unbelievable 50C.

Unfortunately, if you’ve seen the news you’ll know that there is still an unprecedented heatwave happening in Eastern Europe, especially Russia.

And finally, if you’ve come back to the site over the past few days you might have noticed the change in our fire danger ratings. We’ve gone from having a good portion of South Eastern BC in Moderate or even Low fire danger, but now only the Peace region remains in that rating, the entire rest of the Province marches onward towards high and extreme ratings.

After another week of this kind of weather you can probably expect a campfire ban to go into effect across most of the province.

With us heading officially into “heat wave” territory by Sunday (5 days with temps 5 degrees above normal) the fire risk will be increasing sharply.

So just a reminder for anyone out there to please, keep your campfires small and have lots of water on hand to douse it when you’re done.

According to the Ministry of Forests Map below, the current Fire Rating is High for most of Vancouver Island. There is also a pocket of Extreme here in the Alberni Valley and near Duncan.

High: Fire hazard is serious. Extreme caution must be used in any forest activities. Burning permits and industrial activities may be restricted.

Extreme: Extremely high fire hazard. General forest activities may be restricted, including burning permits, industrial activities and campfires.

Our Humidity has also been quite low, around 25%. Here is the full “Fire Weather” website.

Finally, you can see the official fire ratings here. Our region is under “Beaver Creek”. (the fire base is near the Airport). According to that table, it only took 3 days for the fire rating to go from Moderate to Extreme.

By Sunday, according to their forecast, it looks like the majority of the Province will be in Extreme fire conditions.