Winter weather goes from ‘weird’ to ‘wishy-washy’

Kamloops and Okanagan cities are going to see some snow this week, but the final week of January isn’t bringing typical winter weather to the area yet.

Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist says this week the forecast is calling for a ‘weird pattern’ to set up over the interior that will bring snow, but also great difficulty in forecasting the actual amounts.

“West of Vancouver Island the flow is coming from Alaska, but in our part of the province the flow is coming from California,” Lundquist says.

The result is a sharp but weak, “wishy-washy” trough that is expected to bring daytime highs of around freezing to 1 Celsius to the region, along with nightly lows to -4 C and scattered light snow of one or two centimetres through today and tomorrow.

Normal daytime highs are -1 C for Vernon, Kelowna and Penticton and 0 C for Kamloops for late January.

“There may be a bit more snow on Wednesday but we don’t yet know for sure. There won’t be any great accumulations in the valley between now and Wednesday, and not much more in mountain passes, either,” Lundquist says.

The Coquihalla Highway could see a centimetre or two more than Kamloops or Okanagan cities, with no significant accumulations expected there.

There’s still no sign of Arctic air for the next 10 days at least. Lundquist says we may even see a slight warming trend to start February.

“It’s been very warm or near average at best so far this winter. The coldest I’ve seen at our Kelowna recording site is -8 C this winter, which is normally the average low for this time of year,” Lundquist says.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad or call 250-488-3065 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to tips@infonews.ca and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.