Blast of snow and cold coming to Okanagan, Kamloops tonight could break records

Don’t be fooled by today’s pleasant mix of sun and cloud — Winter is on its way.

Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist says all of the southern interior can expect a taste of winter this weekend as an arctic air mass meets up with a Pacific system sliding down the coast tonight.

He says wet snow will start tonight in the valley bottoms and continue through Friday, with accumulations very possible.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s pretty white outside tomorrow morning. We could see maybe 5 to 10 cm in the South Okanagan, 3 to 5 cm in Kamloops and maybe 10 cm over the Coquihalla Highway,” Lundquist says.

Although the valley bottoms are still warm, Lundquist says enough snow could fall to cause some problems for motorists on their morning commutes.

His advice: be prepared for winter driving at all elevations tomorrow.

Following Friday’s snowfall, Kamloops and the Okanagan can expect to endure a very chilly weekend with a couple of nights in the -5 to -10 Celsius range before things begin warming up next week.

There’s even the possibility of some low temperature records being broken over the weekend, Lundquist says.

“There are some weak records, because early season arctic outbreaks are kind of random. We’ve had some earlier in the month, and some we’ve had some around Halloween, but this one is timed perfectly for a period where we haven’t had an arctic outbreak before,” he says.

As an example, a trip to the polls on election day Saturday, Oct. 24 will feel like a winter outing with highs of -1 C to 0 C in Kamloops and the Okanagan.

Thankfully, the weekend blast should be short lived.

That’s not the case on the prairies, where the arctic air settled in earlier this week.

“It’s -8 C in Edmonton this morning. They are going to have highs of – 6  C and -7 C over the weekend and highs of  -7 C, -8 C in Calgary,” Lundquist noted.

Environment Canada says by the middle of next week Kamloops and the Okanagan’s daily highs should be back up around 10 C.

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