Hot dry weather to linger for weeks in Kamloops, Okanagan

It could be well into the fall before there’s any appreciable change to the hot weather facing residents in the Okanagan and Kamloops.

“I don’t really see any rainfall over the next two weeks,” Brett Anderson, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather, told iNFOnews.ca. “The overall trend going through August is below average rainfall still to persist. With the dryness, of course, it favours above normal temperatures.”

The heat is likely to persist well into the fall until a La Nina weather system is expected to move in, bringing cool stormy weather into the Southern Interior.

That may make for a miserable November and into the winter but not much change is expected before then.

“The end of July into the early part of August, especially, is when we expect our hottest time of the year,” Environment Canada meteorologist Bobby Sekhon said. “That’s when we get our high pressure ridges that bring us extended periods of hot dry weather.”

Most all-time heat records in the region that were shattered in June were originally set in late July and early to mid-August.

READ MORE: One more day of the heat wave pushes Okanagan and Canadian records even higher

“June was an historic event,” Sekhon said. “I don’t see anything like that on the horizon at this point but we cannot rule out any extended ridges of high pressure coming in because we’re getting into that period where we can expect these kinds of ridges of high pressure to occur.

"We are going to see some hot dry weather still. It’s not going to be record breaking, but for the next week or two we expect temperatures at least around the 30s and even to the mid 30s.”

Precipitation is harder to predict than temperatures but no significant amounts are being forecast in the foreseeable future.

“September is far away and things can change,” Anderson cautioned.

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