You wouldn’t know it from the past few days, but November was actually much drier than normal in Quesnel and Williams Lake.
Armel Castellan, a Meteorologist with Environment Canada, says Quesnel had just 37.3 millimeters of precipitation last month and the normal amount is 51.3.
Castellan says Williams Lake was even drier.
“Only 13.3 millimeters were recorded, the normal is up at 42.2, so that’s actually only 31.5 percent of normal for the month. That actually makes it in the top 5, the 5th driest November on record.”
Castellan says neither city approached a record.
“The record low for Quesnel is 1.3 millimeters, in 1915, so essentially zero is possible in November believe it or not. For Quesnel, in terms of the most precipitation in November, it is 100.4, which is two times the average in 1927. The least, for Williams Lake, is 8.9 millimeters in 1963. And the most is 95.2 millimeters in 1996.”
Castellan says in recent days, Quesnel also had a lot more snow than Williams Lake.
“Late last week in Quesnel, on the 27th, there was only 3 centimeters on the ground, by the 28th there was 8, by the 30th, which was Saturday, there was 14 and then we go to 18 this (Monday) morning. We’re talking about compacted snow or settled snow, so you can imagine there is a little bit more than that when it comes to actual hourly snowfall.”
Castellan says Williams Lake was only at around 3 centimeters of snow on the ground by this (Monday) morning.
He says the most snow ever recorded on the ground for December 2nd in Quesnel was 56 centimeters back in 1975.
Castellan says it was pretty much normal in both communities last month when it comes to the temperature, just 0.8 degrees warmer on average in Quesnel and 0.6 degrees warmer in Williams Lake.
He says we can expect above seasonal for the coming week.
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