Warfield ended up being the hottest spot – almost 39 C – in all of Canada on Monday.
But nailing down record highs – or lows for that matter – can be tricky in the Trail area, considering real-time local data has only been documented by Environment Canada since 2002.
Historically, climate values have been monitored at major airports. For decades, local reports have been based on daily temperatures and precipitation values monitored 365 days a year at the Castlegar airport.
That data is compiled in a month-end summary and reported from the Castlegar weather office, which is a branch of the Southeast Fire Centre.
All that aside and according to Environment Canada, the village wound up breaking a daily high on July 16 when the temperature hit 38.8 C.
The previous July 16 high was 38.2 C recorded at the Warfield weather station five years ago.
Notably, that record high differs from the July 16 record high noted in the Castlegar weather office.
Forecaster Ron Lakeman, from the Castlegar weather office, called the Trail Times early Tuesday morning with an update as his previous forecast didn’t call for extreme heat.
Additionally, because Warfield is not a standard weather station, Lakeman says it’s difficult to gather data from that source as opposed to the historical database available from the Castlegar airport.
“Environment Canada hasn’t been around all that long, so for their historical data, they extrapolate from a couple of different stations,” he explained. “Here in Castlegar the previous record, for July 16, was 37.3 C.”
After temperatures hit between 35 C and 38 C across the Boundary and similar values were reached in areas of Castlegar and Nelson on Monday, Lakeman forecast another day in the high 30s for Tuesday.
Later this week he says a cooling trend is expected and a weekend of “more hospitable” temperatures.
Other record daily highs for July 16, according to Environment Canada, were set in: Nelson, 37.4 C; Pemberton 37.5 C; Port Alberni 34.8; and Whistler broke a 60-year record high of 32.2 C with a temperature of 32.9 C.
