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Plenty of snow expected to fall on valley Thursday.
By Kathy Michaels
Environment Canada is anticipating a snow storm will hit the valley Thursday, but today’s conditions are a lot drier than usual.
“This time last year we had 23 centimetres of snow at the airport and normally in December it’s around 12 centimetres,” said meteorologist Doug Lundquist.
“Today we have less than a centimetre but, that being said, at this time of year in Kelowna we frequently have no snow.”
The monthly tally of snow is also significantly lower than usual.
Kelowna residents usually have to contend with 35.7 centimeters of snow over the entirety of December, while there’s only been 13.2 centimetres this year.
Lundquist explained that’s because this area has been subject to a fairly dry pattern and weather systems that bring precipitation have been generally avoiding the Okanagan, moving instead to California and to norther regions.
“The flow is kind of split, so that’s part of the main reason we’ve had so little snow,” he said. “Now we are going to move from a colder pattern to a warmer pattern and that means it’s looking like there will be a storm on Thursday.”
At the moment they’re anticipating a five to 10 centimeter dump of snow for that day and a flow coming in from the pacific will ensure that conditions are wetter for a while longer.
When the snow comes on Thursday temperatures will hover between -2 C and -4 C and by Friday temperatures will rise to 3 C. Warmer temperatures will mean there will be a 60 per cent chance of flurries on Friday, and on Saturday there’s a 40 per cent chance of showers.
Lundquist is only able to speak to conditions in the valley bottom, and the River Forecast Centre will soon have measurements for the mountain snowpack.
kathy@kelowna.com
250-575-0761
