Enjoy warmer-than-usual weather in Okanagan, Kamloops before it cools off later this week

Temperatures could climb as high as 18 Celsius in Kamloops and 16 C in the Okanagan by tomorrow now that spring has arrived.

The official first day of spring was yesterday, although professional weather forecasters don’t place much weight on that date.

“We talk about meteorological spring starting on March 1,” Environment Canada meteorologist Trevor Smith told iNFOnews.ca today, March 21. “We’re kind of done with any cold snaps and real Arctic air across the southern Interior by then.”

That being said, this week is starting out with temperatures above average. There’s a chance of showers today and tonight but a high pressure system comes in tomorrow, bringing the highest temperatures of the week.

That will be followed by a relatively cold front with highs dropping more to the 10 C range and overnight lows near freezing Wednesday, which is more typical of this time of year.

Another system will move in with damper weather later in the week but there won’t likely to be significant precipitation in the valley bottoms, Smith said.

A couple of centimetres of snow could fall on the Coquihalla Highway between Hope and Merritt and on the Okanagan Connector today and again later in the week.

Expect April to be cooler than average, influenced by a cold anomaly over the Gulf of Alaska, Smith said.

It will still be warmer than March as the hours of daylight steadily increase.

“It’s probably not ideal for flooding,” Smith said. “What this might mean, with a cooler than normal April, the melt of the snowpack is delayed. Usually you want it to come off gradually to mitigate the flood risk. But if we do see a cooler-than-average April, once the warm spell does arrive, say in May, the chances are it’s very warm.”

It’s too soon to tell what precipitation pattern will develop in April, Smith said. Right now, the Okanagan snowpack is at 92% of normal, up from 82% a month ago. The South Thompson snowpack is at 98%, down from 108% in mid-January.

Alpine snow base on regional ski hills:

• 226 cm – Sun Peaks
• 205 cm – Silver Star
• 230 cm – Big White
• 178 cm – Apex

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