Yet another thunderstorm warning was issued for the East Kootenay on Wednesday and some may be wondering what happened to the summer season.
It’s a case of perception becoming reality, however, according to a meteorologist from Environment Canada, because summer weather should be starting to come around after an unexpected delay.
“What you’ve experienced in July this summer is a delay of summer,” said Lisa Coldwells.
A typical June weather pattern, what meteorologists call a cold low season, forms in the Gulf of Alaska and then drops through the province, which makes for cooler temperatures and rainy conditions.
Normally, those cold lows last for a couple of weeks, but then dissipate by the second week of July.
However, this year due to reasons that haven’t be determined, says Coldwells, the cold lows have stuck around a little bit longer.
“It’s a little big unusual to have these patterns stick around so long,” she added.
As far as precipitation goes, an average month of precipitation for July is 38.3 millimetres (mm), but so far this year, there has been 35.8 mm recorded out at the weather station at the Canadian Rockies International Airport.
“We have this short-term weather memory and everyone has it,” Coldwells said. “You’re thinking back to the last couple of summers where we had an incredibly strong upper ridge over the province and they’ve just been super-hot and super-dry. Then you should be thinking that all summers should be like this.
“Then when you go back into the historical averages that we’ve got, it doesn’t turn out that way.”
