Expect cooler temperatures – Possible showers or flurries
The forecast gives it away by putting “showers” or “rain” before “flurries” or “snow”. If that switches then you’ll know Environment Canada gives a better chance for white stuff. But for now it looks like we are just not quite cold enough for snow to be a sure thing. We got down to -1C at the Airport this morning which is the coldest it has been for awhile. (and a big chance from a few days ago when the Airport broke its own heat record closer to 15C)
Podcast is up!
Here’s the podcast to go along with this post.
Detailed look, it’s patchy until Christmas Eve.
The patchiness is a feature, not a bug.
We are in an unsettled/variable pattern for the next few days as the storm tracks split north and south of us. We are left in the middle with slightly cooler air, but no big influencing systems or low pressure centres to drive snowfall (or rainfall). Instead we will have these patches of precipitation popping up, mostly in the mountains and central Island basically from now until Christmas Eve. It is relatively good news for the Ski hills as any precipitation at all will definitely fall as snow at higher elevations but it won’t deliver big accumulations anywhere.
Christmas looks dry.
By the time we get to Christmas Eve the instability dissipates as a front pushes up from the south thanks to a low way down near California (wet Atmospheric river for them).
This kind of system can sometimes give us some snow but it looks like at best it might reach Victoria, the Fraser Valley, or Shawnigan Lake but no further north on the Island. It will deliver snow to the Interior though so if you’re headed to see family there for Christmas, you will indeed get your white Christmas wishes fulfilled!
Things may warm up a little after Christmas with that influence of the southern atmospheric river but it will drop back down to around zero as we approach New Years.
Snowpack zero on the South Island – Very low on the North Island.
The snowpack is not in a good state as you should expect considering Mt Arrowsmith has been essentially bare until this week. The South Island snow pack measurement at Jump Creek (in the upper Nanaimo Lakes) is essentially zero. There has been some snow just in the past day or two. The North Island at Wolf River is at least not zero, but the recent Atmospheric River did reduce things slightly and we are well under the pink ‘normal’ area for this time of year, and near our historical lows.
On the bright side, we are seeing a cooling trend, and these snowpack numbers could bump up quickly if we get the right system. So let’s hope for that!
That’s it for this blog post. Have a wonderful Christmas and don’t forget to download the Alberniweather Alexa Skill at the Amazon.ca store!
About The Author
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.