Worst of Kamloops and Okanagan’s extraordinarily hot, dry summer appears to be over

With a heat wave coming to an end and summer winding down, the hottest days of 2023 are probably over for Kamloops and the Okanagan.

But it’s been an extraordinarily warm and dry year for both regions.

Kamloops is on pace to have its highest average summer temperatures since Environment Canada began keeping records in 1895. Since then, the warmest June, July and August was in 1958, when the average temperature was 22.3 Celsius. So far this summer – from June 1 to Aug. 17 – the average temperature has been 22.6 C.

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The mean summer temperature in Kamloops is 20.3 C.

“A whole 2.3 C above normal for summer period – that ranks as, so far, as the warmest on record,” meteorologist Dave Wray said. “Even if the next week gets quite cold, it’s unlikely it would get that number down to the average.”

As for precipitation, the Kamloops Airport has recorded 23 millimetres of rain so far this summer.

“Normally we could expect 93 mm for the whole summer,” Wray said. “So far that’s trending at 24.7% of normal. We only have another 12 days to get that up.”

In Kelowna, the average temperature has been 22.2 C this summer  – that’s 3.6 C warmer than the historical average of 18.6 C

This year is on track to become Kelowna’s second warmest summer since record keeping began in 1899. Summer temperatures in 2021 – the year of the heat dome – set Kelowna’s record at 22.4 C.

Kelowna has received just 13.7 mm of precipitation so far this summer. That's only 12.5% of the average amount from June to August, 109.7 mm.

“There’s still 12 days so that precept number could go up, but looking forward we’re not seeing any large events in the forecast,” Wray said.

But the hottest days of the summer appear to be over.

“Our heat wave that we’ve been experiencing the past number of days has broken the mid-to-high 30s,” he said. "For today (Aug. 19), we're looking at daytime highs of 26 C. Tomorrow’s a little bit warmer, highs of 28 C.”

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Conditions are forecast to be more ideal for battling wildfires, he said, as temperatures will be lower and the relative humidity will be higher. Furthermore there is a potential chance of showers on Tuesday night.

“It is still mid-August – it’s not out of the realm of possibility that we could see another heat wave before summer’s over. But towards end of August temperatures tend to drop, and we’re now past the point of the highest temperatures we could typically expect.”

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