It was a near-balmy, record-breaking October in the Okanagan.
Environment Canada on Tuesday released figures showing that October was the warmest on the books for a number of B.C. cities, with Penticton, Kelowna and Vernon posting fall temperatures that rivaled coastal cities.
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Kelowna, for example, had the warmest October since records began in 1899. The average temperature for the month came in at 12.1 C. Usually, the mean temperature for the Central Okanagan city is 8.2 C, amounting to a 3.9 C departure from the norm.
Similarly, Vernon also saw its hottest October with the mean temperature coming in at 12 C this year, which is 4.8 C warmer than the usual average temperature of 7.2 C. It was the warmest since records started being taken in 1900.
Penticton was also toasty this October, though it wasn’t the warmest on record. The mean temperature for last month was 11.6 C which was 2.8 C warmer than the usual mean temperature. It was the second warmest October since records started being recorded in 1907.
When it comes to precipitation, it was drier than normal across the Okanagan, with Penticton seeing the least precipitation since records started being taken in 1907. It had only one millimeter of precipitation for all of October. Usually, it has around 26 mm.
In Kelowna, conditions were a bit damper, with 9.8 mm of precipitation being recorded, which is much lower than the regular 29.2 C. That’s just 0.3 per cent of normal, though it makes it the 16th driest month since records started being taken in 1899.
Vernon had the most moisture of all the Okanagan cities, though not by much. There were 12 mm of rain in October, which is 0.3 per cent of the average 35 mm. That made it the 11th driest month for the city since records started being taken.