Hot enough for ya? September was third warmest on record for Vernon

The weather statistics are in, and if you thought September was a hot and dry month, you were right.

Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist says it was the third warmest September in Vernon since record keeping began in 1901, while Kelowna set the record for warmest September since 1994, as far back as records go for that city.

“It was dry, anywhere from a quarter to a third of what we normally should get in the three Okanagan cities. Penticton had seven millimetres of rain when that city normally gets 25 mm, Kelowna had 10 mm versus the normal amount of 29 mm, and in Vernon, only 9 mm fell, when that city usually gets 37 mm in September,” Lundquist says.

Kamloops had five mm of precipitation compared to the average of 29 mm.

The Okanagan ranged two to four degrees above average temperature for the month, while Kamloops finished the month of September with an average temperature two degrees above normal.

The month began warm and dry, followed by a week where wildfire smoke darkened skies and lowered temperatures. That was followed by a few days of clouds and showers, and a return to warm, sunny conditions to round out the month.

Lundquist says the long-term outlook for the last three months of the year is a "very likely scenario" of warmer than average temperatures from now through December.

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