Above average temperatures and below average rainfall in December has a number of people wondering where winter went.
Predictions of a La Niña system pounding the coast with cold, wet weather have yet to materialize.
In fact, the temperature at Entrance Island off Gabriola Island reached 13.4 C Wednesday, making it the warmest place in Canada and beating the previous Dec. 29 record in Nanaimo of 12. 2 C set in 1947.
And as of Dec. 27, the Harbour City had received 49 millimetres of precipitation for December, well below the monthly average of 190 mm.
But David Jones, Environment Canada meteorologist, said calls of major changes in weather patterns are nonsense.
“These types of systems happen. They are the normal variations in the weather that we see,” he said. “There is this desire to simplify the weather and blame systems like La Niña for everything when it is one of only a half dozen factors.
“Knowing what happened in the past does not help in predicting what will happen this year.”
Environment Canada is calling for rain today and Wednesday (Jan. 3-4) with highs of 9 C and lows of 3 C.
