Victoria shatters 121-year-old heat record on Tuesday

Victoria’s Inner Habour shattered a 121-year-old heat record but Environment Canada isn’t getting too excited about.

A high of 28.4 C was recorded by a Victoria Harbour weather station on Tuesday, according to Environment Canada. The previous high on June 11 was 21.7 C set in 1898, a record that meteorologist Doug Lundquist said was “an easy one to break.”

“Sometimes there is randomness to records,” he added, saying he won’t make much of the Tuesday’s high temperatures until there is a hot spell or multiple records are broken in the same region.

“I get really excited when we see many records broken in a row.”

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Environment Canada has records from Victoria’s Harbour dating back to 1874.

One of the main factors for Tuesday’s record was the wind, which pushed hot air into the harbour rather than cool air off the water toward the weather station.

Lundquist says it’s possible more records will fall on Wednesday followed by a slight cooling in the forecast. He points out that all the days over the next week are forecast to have temperatures higher than 19 C, the seasonal average for Victoria.

Victoria’s Harbour was one of seven weather stations picking up record-breaking temperatures on Tuesday:

Clinton
New record 25.2 C
Old record 24.6 C set in 2015

Gibsons
New record 27.8 C
Old record 23.0 C set in 1989

Pemberton
New record 33.7 C
Old record 32.2 C set in 1932

Sechelt
New Record 27.8 C
Old record 24.0 C set in 1982

Squamish
New record 30.0 C
Old record 28.8 C set in 1982

Whistler
New record 30.1 C
Old record 27 C