TechGist05

The chart below shows the % chance of precipitation and the % of possible sunshine on any given day during the year in Victoria.  It's really striking how the likelihood of precipitation and sunshine form a mirror image of each other. Let's start by looking at the blue line - the chance of precipitation on any given day.  This starts in the 50-60% range during January and February, drops below 50% in March, and gradually declines until it reaches about 20% in June and early July.  Then we see something that is very distinctive of the climate in our area - a sharp drop down to about a 10% chance of rain on any given day from roughly the second week of July until mid-August.  That's definitely the time to plan your camping trip or outdoor event if you want to almost guarantee dry weather!  Beginning in mid-August, the chance of rain begins to increase, back to about 20% by the end of August, then gradually increases to about 25% by the end of September.  Unlike the spring, wh

It's been a while since we saw a scene like this (from 2006) in Victoria - four years, in fact! The last time there was more than 1 cm of snow on the ground in Victoria was January 20, 2012 – four years ago tomorrow, and there’s a good chance that we will make it through the rest of this winter without snow.  Even by Victoria standards, that’s an unusually long snowless stretch.  In fact, it’s the longest snowless stretch since they began recording snow depth at Victoria Gonzales in 1955.  The second longest stretch was from February 20, 1986 to February 15, 1989 – just short of three years.    How often does it snow in Victoria?  That’s a question that residents and non-residents frequently ask, and I have heard a lot of different answers.  Some people may think it never snows in Victoria, while others will claim it snows every winter.  I already talked about the general patterns for snow in Victoria in an earlier post , but I thought I would dig a bit more deeper into the statist

I've already mentioned that Victoria is the sunniest place in B.C. and one of the sunniest cities in Canada.  Well, here's some more proof of just how sunny it is here.  I came across the following list of the sunniest months ever recorded in Canada.  (This is based on Environment Canada measurements from all ten provinces, but doesn't include locations in the territories  since some northern locations get 24 hour daylight in June and July.)  Amazingly, while the statistics came from hundreds of weather sites across Canada, Victoria Gonzales or Victoria Airport accounted for 5 of the 8 sunniest months on record, including the top 4 sunniest months ever recorded in Canada: Station Month Hours 1 Victoria Airport July 2013 432.8 2 Victoria Gonzales July 1985 426.0 3 Victoria Gonzales July 1958 424.7 4 Victoria Airport July 1985 421.5 5 Manyberries, AB July 1985 414.0 6 Cranbrook, BC July 1985 413.0 7 Medic

I've mentioned how the Olympic Mountain rain shadow has such a profound impact on Victoria's climate.  Thanks to this effect, the Victoria Gonzales weather station averages only 641 mm of precipitation annually, compared  more than 1000 mm in Metchosin (20 km west) and more than 3500 mm at Port Renfrew (80 km west on the exposed southwest coast of Vancouver Island). Yesterday, we had a good example of a rain shadow.  Here's what the radar looked like around midday yesterday: You can see there is a pretty clear hole in the rain over Victoria, as well as the northeast Olympic Peninsula.  That "hole" persisted for most of the day and there were only a couple of light sprinkles.  Meanwhile, there was steady rain all day up at the Victoria Airport, with rain recorded every hour from 4 am until midnight yesterday. The precipitation totals from yesterday also tell the story.  There was just 1.4 mm of rain at Victoria Gonzales and 1.5 mm of rain at the University of Victo

You may have seen Victoria described as having a Mediterranean or perhaps a sub-Mediterranean climate.  Is this just local boosterism?   People are sometimes skeptical about these claims of a Mediterranean climate.   After all, while we have great weather in Victoria, it’s not exactly southern California or the Greek Islands.   Despite the skepticism, there is in fact truth to these claims.   The Koppen classification system, developed by Russian German climatologist Wladimir Koppen in the late 19 th century,   is one of the most widely used climate classification systems in the world.   Under the Koppen system, the world’s climates are classified into five main groups: A – Tropical, B – Dry, C – Temperate, D – Continental, and E – Polar.   Victoria falls in the the Temperate group, which is further classified based on the annual precipitation pattern, indicated by the second letter in the classification: s for dry summer, w for dry winter, and f for precipitation throug

El Nino has really started to make its presence felt in California over the past few days, with a series of storms bringing lots of rain to coastal areas - just what you would expect during an El Nino winter.  For Victoria, the conventional wisdom is that we tend to experience winters that are warmer and a bit drier than normal during El Nino years.  This year's El Nino has been touted as the largest one ever recorded, so has our winter weather lived up to the expectation so far?  Not really. First, let's look in a little more detail at how El Nino usually impacts our winters in Victoria.  Over the past 30 winters, there have been 6 moderate or strong El Ninos: 1982-83, 1986-87, 1991-92, 1997-98, 2002-03, and 2009-10. The table below looks at the monthly mean temperature in Victoria for December through March, comparing El Nino winters with the 30-year average.  Each month between December and March has been, on average, warmer during El Nino winters.  The difference is smaller

One nice thing about this time of year, not only are the days getting longer but the temperatures are getting warmer.  Statistically, the coldest day of the year in Victoria is December 28, with an average high of 6.5 degrees.  Here we are on January 5, and the average temperature for this date is 7.3 (even though we were below average today).  The gradual warming will continue, with the average high temperature topping 8 degrees by January 26, 9 degrees by February 19, and 10 degrees by March 6. The chart below, which shows the average daily high temperature in Victoria between November and March, illustrates this trend.  You can see that average temperatures fall off quickly in November, then level off during December.  There is a short period in late December when average termperatures reach the lowest level of the year.  There is a relatively sharp increase at the end of December and beginning of January when average temperatures jump from 6.5 to nearly 8 degrees, then a more gradu

While, statistically, Victoria didn't experience a lot of extreme weather in December 2015, it was an interesting month. The mean temperature for the month at Victoria Gonzales was 6.2 degrees, almost a degree warmer than the 30-year average of 5.3.  December saw an average daily high of 8.1 and an average low of 4.3, again warmer than the average high/low of 7.2 / 3.3.  However, these monthly averages mask what was almost two different months when it came to temperature.  The first half of the month was very mild - in fact the second mildest Dec 1-15 on record - with a mean temperature of 8.2 degrees and an average high/low of 10.0 / 6.3.  The second half of the month got much chillier - nearly 2 degrees below average - with a mean temperature of 4.4 and an average high/low of 6.3 / 2.5. The warmest day of the month was 12.8 on December 8.  There were 7 days when the temperature topped 10 degrees, all between Dec. 3 and 11th.  The coldest overnight low of the month was -0.9 on Dec

It's New Year's Day, a good time to review the weather we experienced in Victoria during 2015. The most significant feature of the weather in 2015 was the warmth.  2015 was the warmest year on record at Victoria Gonzales, with the recording-keeping going back over 100 years to 1898.  The mean annual temperature was 11.7 degrees compared with the 1981-2010 average of 10.6 degrees.  The old record was 11.5 degrees in 2004.  Ten of the months during 2015 were warmer than normal - only September and November were below average. Some months also broke temperature records.  February 2015 was by far the warmest February on record at Victoria Gonzales, with a mean temperature of 8.9 degrees and an average daily max/min of 11.2 / 6.6.  February was 2.4 degrees above the average of 6.5 and smashed the old record of 8.2 degrees by a wide margin.  In addition, June 2015 tied with June 2003 as the warmest on record, with a mean temperature of 16.1 degrees and an average daily max/min of 20.

Victoria has a well-known reputation for having the mildest climate in Canada, but fewer people seem to be aware that it is also among Canada's sunniest cities, with an average annual 2,203 hours.  Sunshine was measured at Victoria Gonzales from 1914 to 1988, so this average was calculated based on the most recent 30-year period (1958-88) rather than the standard 30-year climate normal period (currently 1981-2010). The Olympic Mountain rainshadow, discussed earlier for its impact on precipitation in Victora, also affects the amount of sunshine.  As winds flow down over the Olympics, the sinking air warms and dries, often resulting in a hole in the clouds.  In fact this is so prevalent that airplane pilots often use this "hole in the clouds" as part of the visual navigation in the region around Victoria. Victoria is the sunniest city in B.C. and one of the sunniest cities in Canada.  Compared with 2,203 hours at Victoria Gonzales, the Victoria Airport averages 2,109 hours