Nanaimo has broken its record for the longest stretch of days without rain and there’s no end in sight for the dry spell.
Environment Canada says the city had gone 35 consecutive days without rain as of Tuesday, July 20, beating the former record of 34 straight days with no measurable precipitation from June 28 to July 31 in 2013.
Areas of the Island did receive some spot showers Friday, July 16, but nothing fell in Nanaimo.
“There was a bit of a front that went through and gave some places a few showers – I think in Comox they got 0.8 millimetres or something – but nothing in the Nanaimo Airport weather station,” said Bobby Sekhon, Environment Canada meteorologist.
There is a 30 per cent chance of showers predicted for today, July 21, due to what Sekhon described as an onshore flow of air from the Pacific, but if no measurable rain falls the dry spell could continue until late August.
“We’re not seeing any significant rainfall in sight,” Sekhon said. “We are going to … keep with this onshore flow from the Pacific, so it’s not impossible to get something that produces a little bit of showers or something like that, but we’re not looking at any major systems coming through anytime soon. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to get maybe one millimetre on some day, but it’s nothing that we are looking at.”
Sekhon said mid to late August is when some rains traditionally start again on the B.C. south coast.
“That’s when we get back into getting precipitation, in terms of climatology, but we’ll se what happens this year,” he said.
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