With a final round of potential wet weather set to hit Vancouver Island in the final two days of the month, January remains one of the driest for several communities.
Tracked by the rainfall measured at gauges in various weather stations across the province, Environment and Climate Change Canada tracks a percentage of normal usage over a 30-year average.
Several Island stations are tracking at about 20 to 30 per cent of normal for January, primarily falling in the early part of the month, said Lisa Erven, warning preparedness meteorologist
“We’ve been in a fairly dry pattern … we finally have a shift in the weather pattern late this week,” Erven said. “We will see some additions to our monthly totals.”
It’s the second driest recorded at the Victoria Gonzales weather station which up to Jan. 28 saw 16.6 mm of precipitation versus the monthly normal of 94.3.
With the last precipitation a scant 0.2 mm recorded Jan. 15, Victoria airport is one of three Island stations reporting the third-driest January as of Jan. 28. The airport recorded 28.2 mm of the usual 133.2 mm so far this month, Nanaimo at 38.2 mm of the usual 189.9 and Comox at 50.8 of the usual 171.9.
Data for various stations across the province are available online at climate.weather.gc.ca/index_e.html.
