Portions of the Coquihalla Highway closed due to heavy snowfall and accidents Monday, with less than 48 hours to go until the month of May.
And yet, the temperature was not that far off the norm for the time of year, according to Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist.
“I would say (the snow-line) was just above the valley bottom,” Lundquist said.
To be more precise, the snow fell 700-meters from the valley floor, dusting many of the hillside homes. A strong wind pushed a cold front in from Alaska over the weekend, bringing with it hail, snow and an ugly breeze that ricocheted down the valley, hitting south of the boarder by mid-day Monday.
The actual temperature, meanwhile, hovered between a low of three degrees and a high of nine degrees Celsius at the Kelowna International Airport weather station.
As cold as it seemed, long-term weather pattern data shows the last 90-days, on average, have actually been half a degree warmer than this period is traditionally, and the last 30 days has been just two-tenths of a degree Celsius above average, on average.
It might seem colder than usual, Lundquist pointed, out because Easter Weekend was so blissfully warm it shattered weather records heat.
