The average Okanagan resident may be reveling in the record breaking warmth of February, but the valley’s fruit growers are a little less pleased.
“The weather has been causing some concern…this is the last week of February and the lilacs are starting to bush and I can see that coloured hue in the peaches next door,” said Fred Steele, president of the BC Fruit Growers’ Association.
“The sap is starting to run and the trees are starting to wake up.”
One potential problem with the reawakening is that March could bring winter back with a heavy frost, and those now vulnerable trees won’t be able to withstand the change.
“Back in the winter of 1949, we had double digit temperatures in daytime and then double digit below zero in the evenings,” Steele said, noting that was back in the days of farenheit.
“It killed thousands of trees. Split them right in half.”
The other potential problem of escalating warmth is that the growing season could be adversely affected.
There are times in the growing season where you get that heat, and everything slows down to a crawl,” he said.
“It’s when the temperature drops down again, they grow and change colour.”
Both size and colour impact the buying price of a crop.
And then there are issues about timing sprays, and life cycle of the bugs that plague trees.
“Basically this is an unsettled year—we don’t know what’s coming,” he said, pointing out that crop insurance is particularly important this year.
In the meantime, farmers are hoping temperatures will cool down to seasonal norms, and little rain will follow. They’re also going to enjoy what’s turned out to be a particularly pleasant pruning season.
“The reason for (the warm month) is a broad scale upper ridge sitting over B.C,” said said Lisa Coldwells, a meteorologist with Environment Canada..
That upper ridge works sort of like an umbrella for the Southern Interior, she explained. It’s pushing up warmer temperatures from the southern part of the province while shielding the region from weather across the mountain ridges that separate it from Alberta.
It’s meant that Kelowna had record breaking temperatures throughout the month. On Feb. 6 the temp was 11.6 C, which broke a record of 5.7 C on the same day in 2009. Next, on Feb. 8 mercury rose to 12.1 C, and broke the record of 8.6 C set that day in 1998. On Feb. 11, temperatures peaked at 9.2 C and that broke the old record of 7.6 C set in 1998.
Then things got really steamy. On Valentine’s Day temperature highs were 13.2 C, breaking a 9 C record set in 2003. Then, Feb. 15 temperatures came in at 10.7 C, breaking a record of 9.7 set in 1994.
