TechGist05

Victoria only gets about 20 cm of snow annually - the least of any city in Canada.  Even areas nearby get considerably more snow.  For example, both the Victoria Airport (25 km north of the city) and Vancouver Airport get nearly 40 cm of snow annually - roughly double Victoria.  It is very common for Vancouver and up-Island communities to get snow when there is none in Victoria.  In fact, there will often be snow in Langford and the Saanich Peninsula (where the Victoria Airport is located) while there is none in the core area of Victoria, especially those areas near the moderating influence of the Strait of Juan de Juca.  Below is a photo of the Legislative Buildings near downtown Victoria taken on February 23, 2014.  While there is clearly no snow downtown, the Victoria Airport recorded 21 cm of snow that day! December is the snowiest month in Victoria, and accounts for nearly half of the annual total.  It should be noted that because snow is quite ra...

Precipitation is another key aspect of Victoria's climate - and one that makes it quite unique among places along the B.C. coast - thanks to the rainshadow effect.  The east coast of Vancouver Island as well as the Gulf Islands, are in the rainshadow of the Vancouver Island mountains.  Moisture from the Pacific is dropped in abundant amounts on the west coast of Vancouver Island as the air lifts up over the mountains.  As the air flows back down to the east coast lowlands of Vancouver Island, it tends to warm and dry out, resulting in much less rain.  Victoria is unique because it is also in the rainshadow of the Olympic Mountains in Washington State.  The Olympics are higher than the mountains on Vancouver Island and the resulting rainshadow effect is stronger. Even though Victoria is on the edge of the Olympic rainshadow, this still results in much less rain than other areas of Vancouver Island or the Gulf Islands.  This is especially true around the sout...

As with the average temperatures, the extreme temperatures in Victoria tend to be not so extreme in Victoria.   Victoria Gonzales averages 10.8 days annually when the temperature drops to 0 or below - by far the least for any city in Canada.  By comparison, Victoria Airport - located away from the Strait of Juan de Fuca in an area prone to frost - averages 46 days annually with freezing temperatures.  Vancouver Airport averages 40.9 days annually with freezing temperatures.  In the past 100 years, there have been 5 winters at Victoria Gonzales when the temperature did not fall below 0: 1925/26, 1939/40, 1991/92, 1999/2000, and 2002/03.  The median lowest temperature each winter is -4.8.   The coldest temperature ever recorded at Victoria Gonzales was -15.6 on December 29, 1968.  However, temperatures like that are rare and getting rarer.  In fact, there have been no temperatures below -10 recorded in Victoria since December 1990.  In the past...

I thought I would start out this blog by describing key aspects of Victoria's climate.  Of course, a major element of any climate is temperature, so I will start there.  The climate statistics I quote here are all based on 1981-2010 30-year averages for Victoria Gonzales. A key feature of Victoria's climate - and one that distinguishes it from most other places in Canada - is its mildness.  The average annual temperature at Victoria Gonzales is 10.6 degrees, among the warmest places in Canada.  What's really unique - at least in Canada - is how little this varies throughout the year.  The coldest month on the year in Victoria is December, with a mean temperature of 5.3 degrees, while the warmest month is August, with a mean temperature of 16.3.  That is a difference of just 11 degrees between the coldest month of the year and the warmest.  By comparison, this difference is 14 degrees for Vancouver, 27 degrees for Toronto, and 36 degrees for Winnipeg. V...