The first month of 2021 was the sixth warmest January on record in Prince George.
Those first 31 days were, on average, four degrees above normal . The average daily temperature was a balmy -3.8 C. The average for January is -7.9 C.
“The warmth really extends all the way back to late November,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Lisa Erven, from her weather office in Vancouver. “There were near-normal or above-normal temperatures dating to the last week of November and that warmth remained with us through January.
“We saw (in Prince George) daytime temperatures in and around three, four, five, six degrees and it wasn’t until the last 10 days when we finally flipped and the weather pattern turned more seasonal or even below-normal temperatures for the very end of the month. That sort of counterbalances all that warmth we saw the first two weeks.”
The lowest daytime high was -14 C on Jan. 28 and the lowest low for the month was -17.3 C, recorded the morning of Jan. 29. The warmest day of the month was Jan. 2nd went it the thermometer hit 6.4 C.
It was the fourth-driest January on record, which dates back to 1943. The city received just 22 millimeters of precipitation, most of which fell as rain early in the month. That’s about 42 per cent of normal precipitation for January is 52.9 mm.
But don’t be fooled, we are not out of the woods yet when it comes to winter cold and much of B.C. remains in a cool pattern. A mass of frigid Arctic air will slide southeasterly along the Rocky Mountains later this week and the Peace region will take the brunt of the cold but the ridge will also drop temperatures in the Central Interior.
Snow is in the forecast tonight for Prince George with five-10 centimetres expected. After an overnight low of -8 C, the flurries will continue Tuesday, with a high of -7 C and a low dipping to -17C under clear skies. The snow will return Wednesday night and into Thursday, and the daytime high is expected to reach 1 C. Friday will be a cool day with a high of -10 C and a low of -16 C but the weekend should warm to close to the freezing mark with some flurries expected.
The normal daytime high for this time of year is -3 C and the normal low is -12 C. Erven says the worst of winter could still be on the way this month.
“The temperature trend over the next 14 days is to remain colder than normal and then as we get into late February the pattern becomes a little bit less defined - still a hint of cooler-than-normal temperatures but by how much that’s quite uncertain at this point,” said Erven.
“The cold anomaly looks quite strong, so we have a high degree of confidence of these below normal temperatures lingering, with periods there of much below-normal temperatures.”
Now more than a month past the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year, the days are getting longer by about four minutes each day. Today’s sunrise was at 7:17 a.m., while the sunrise is 5:32 p.m. By March 13, the day before we turn our clocks ahead for daylight saving time, the sun will coming up at 6:29 a.m. and setting at 6:12 p.m.
