March one of the driest on record in Okanagan, Kamloops

March was one of the driest on record in Kamloops and the Okanagan.

Penticton led the way with its second driest March on record. It was the fourth driest March for Vernon, fifth for Kamloops and sixth for Kelowna.

“March is one of the driest months of the year in the area so we don’t expect to see a lot of precipitation but, this time around, it was exceptionally low," Environment Canada meteorologist Bobby Sekhon told iNFOnews.ca. “

It was also a cooler than normal month but not by much. Penticton was about 2 Celsius cooler than average and the rest of the cities were about 1 C cooler.

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April has started out dry and cool but things are warming up.

“We’re looking at some warmer weather by the end of the weekend and into next week,” Sekhon said. “We’re probably going to see a relatively warmer stretch of weather. We’ll see a bit of southwesterly flow develop and that generally brings us warmer weather in the Thompson and Okanagan areas.”

The normal high daily temperature for early April in Kamloops is 15 C. That city should reach those highs by early next week, he said.

For Kelowna, the normal high is 13 C, which should happen this weekend.

“Spring comes with a lot of uncertainty for even the midrange forecast so it’s hard to say for the month in total but looking out for next week it does look that southern B.C. is indicating above average temperatures,” Sekhon said. “Definitely into the second week of the month it could be above average but beyond that it’s harder to say.”

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