🌡️#VernonBC Weather - 2023 May 🧵
May was on metaphorical 🔥: the North Okanagan saw dense wildfire smoke from the north and temperatures that soared almost 5°C above monthly normal! Five daily temperature records fell (going back to 1901); meanwhile, the 2023 drought continues…
#VernonBC May 2023 Temperature Summary
Average: 17.9°C (Normal: 13.1°C)
Maximum: 32.4°C (Normal: 19.7°C; Extreme: 34.5°C)
Minimum: 6.9°C (Normal: 6.4 °C; Extreme: -5°C)
❗️Mean temperature was a whopping 4.8°C warmer than normal❗️
#VernonBC Spring Heat
Vernon has had it's hottest May ever using the Cooling Degree Days metric! Many #Okanagan-#Shuswap stations saw new daily Tmax records, including five in #VernonBC!
[Cumulative Cooling Degree-days (A heat exposure metric summing daily average T>18°C)].
#VernonBC Precipitation
May's precipitation was well below normal, as has been the case every month this year
Total Precip (mm) for May was 27.1 mm. This is 57% of the 1981-2010 normal (47.8 mm).
As for climatological spring (Mar-May), it has been the 23rd driest in 124 years with 53.4 mm over the three months. June is normally our wettest month (59.1 mm); will our 2023 pattern of below normal precipitation continue this month?
Silver Star (1840 m) Snow Water Equivalent (mm) #VernonBC.
Cumulative winter snowpack (red) is experiencing a record ablation (melting) rate so far with about 37% still to come. Years' previous are grey traces.
#VernonBC 2023 Climate Variance
Monthly differences of temperature compared to the 1981-2010 climate normal (l).
Chart of precipitation deficit/surplus compared to normal (r). Vertical scale is in millimetres and text label is percent of normal (r).
Implications of our warm and dry spring:
The #Okanagan Valley bottom has an extreme Fire Weather Drought Code. The code represents average moisture content of deep, compact organic layers. This code is a useful indicator of seasonal drought effects on forest fuels.
Credits: station actual, normal, and almanac data are from climate.weather.gc.ca, unless otherwise noted. For historical references, I use unadjusted data from three Vernon weather stations that have operated over the decades.
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