Prince George had a few record setting days in December, but the month itself was not record setting weather wise.
However, 2023 was the driest year on record the city has seen since 1918.
The mean temperature in Prince George at the airport was -1.2 C and the normal mean temperature for the month of December is -7.2 C.
That makes it the 11th warmest December on record, with the records going back to 1912.
Record setting days included Dec 30 which saw a temperature of 9.7 C, breaking the 9.4 C record set in 1926 and Dec 28 at 8.7 C, broke a record of 7.8 C set in 1919.
Neither of these days was the hottest December day ever recorded in the area, which was 12.8 degrees also in 1919.
“It probably felt even warmer than that but we did have a little bit of cooler air early in the early in December so it helped us alleviate things to a certain degree,” said Brian Proctor, meteorologist with Environment Canada.
“It terms of precipitation it was a very interesting month.”
He said Prince George actually ended up with a wetter than normal December with the airport reporting 57.7 millimetres of total precipitation, which includes snow and rain together.
The normal would be 43.9 millimetres.
However, despite a wet December it was still an incredibly dry year for the city and the region.
“We had a very interesting, very dry, very problematic year, if you want to put it that way,” said Proctor.
The annual mean temperature at the airport was 5.5 C and normal mean temperature annually is 4.3 C so it was 1.2 C above normal which makes it the fourth warmest year on record for Prince George.
“But of real interest is the precipitation,” said Proctor. A normal amount of precipitation on an annual basis at the airport is 594.9 millimetres, he explained, but 2023 recorded only 342.3 millimetres which is the driest on the period of record going back to 1918.
“And many stations the further north you went in the interior of the province and towards the northeast, the drier it was and the warmer it was.”
He said this explains why the province had such a problematic forest fire season, and coming into the fall and winter much of the area is facing a drought situation.
Despite more precipitation in the month of December, it’s still been relatively warm and Proctor said it’s not enough to start rebuilding snow packs, so drought is an ongoing concern.
Proctor says Prince George will begin to see some subtle changes in the forecast going forward with things cooling off toward the weekend.
“For Prince George typically this time of year, our maximum temperatures should be somewhere around daytime highs -6 C, overnight lows, sort of -14 C and right now we're looking for as temperatures just floating just below freezing,” said Proctor.
“For the next few days, as we move towards the weekend, we start to see things cooling off a bit on Friday, down to more seasonal expected values.”
He said by the time we get towards the end of the weekend, there will be daytime highs about – 12 C.
