The Okanagan is experiencing a warmer than usual winter.
According to Global News meteorologist Peter Quinlan, December 2020 in the Kelowna area was the ninth warmest December on record.
“It’s been incredibly mild,” Quinlan said on Thursday. “Through the entire Okanagan, we’re seeing temperatures 1 to 2 degrees above average.
“And when you’re averaging out an entire month of data, that is fairly significant.”
The above-average temperatures are the result of ridges of high pressure pushing through the region.
“We haven’t really seen a big Arctic surge, which we typically get at this time of year, dropping temperatures below freezing for an extended period of time,” said Quinlan.
Some, however, are anxiously waiting for freezing temperatures to arrive.
The winemaker at Summerhill Pyramid in Kelowna is among them, as he waits for a cold snap that will allow grapes for ice wine to be harvested.
“It is always a concern,” winemaker Michael Alexander said. “Every year, it’s a gamble.”
Temperatures of at least -8 C are needed to harvest grapes for ice wine.
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Alexander said “we came really close on Christmas Eve but did not quite hit it. Things didn’t freeze how we wanted them to, and so it’s just delayed the harvest.”
Summerhill isn’t pressing the panic button just yet, because grapes for ice wine can be picked until the end of February. However, the longer the harvest is delayed, the less will be produced.
“The longer the fruit hangs, the more desiccation we get, the more grapes fall off,” Alexander said.
“You get winds blowing in and it knocks the grapes off because they’re so delicate. So the longer we leave it hanging, the less we’re going to make.”
While the Okanagan experiences mild temperatures, it’s also been wetter than normal with an above-average amount of precipitation for December in many parts of the Okanagan.
The increased moisture is being attributed to a weather pattern that we see every few years called La Niña.
“La Niña is cooler waters in the eastern Pacific, off the coast of Peru, and it has implications around the world,” said Quinlan.
“Typically, a La Niña set up for the Interior of B.C. means a wetter-than-normal winter season.”
According to Quinlan, the mild conditions are expected to stick around for much of January.
“I think we will reach a pivot point probably toward the end of the month,” said Quinlan, “when temperatures will start to cool off a bit for the last week of January and into early February.”
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