If you thought 2024 was a particularly wet year for Vancouver, your spidey senses are on point.
We recently spoke to Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) meteorologist Chris Doyle about 2024 and to get a look ahead to 2025, particularly this January.
He told us that 2024 was the wettest year since 1997 when we saw over 1,520 millimetres.
In 2024, we saw nearly 1,400 millimetres.
That said, there wasn’t a huge disparity in how wet it was in 2024. Doyle said it was less than a few hundred millimetres above average.
December 2024 was also a bit odd compared to the average December in Vancouver. YVR Weather Records suggests that nearly 15 records were broken throughout the month.
December summary: #Vancouver broke (or almost broke) 15 records during December. #YvrWx pic.twitter.com/4y3GKes7LT
— Vancouver Weather Records🌤 (@YVR__Weather) January 3, 2025
Doyle told Daily Hive that December 2024 was generally warmer than usual and saw above-average precipitation.
“Total precipitation was 194 millimetres. Normal is 162, so it was just on the threshold of what we could call wet.”
In our past few conversations with ECCC, we asked when Vancouver, or even Metro Vancouver, might see some typical winter weather. Freezing temperatures. Snow. The frosty works. That kind of stuff.
Previously, it was suggested that we could see weather trending in that direction near the end of January. Doyle says that while there’s still a chance of that, ECCC can’t say that definitively, and there’s still lots of variability between now and the end of the month.
“For the foreseeable future, there’s no wintry weather in the picture, at least until beyond the middle of the month, more likely closer to the end, but there’s a lot of uncertainty,” he added.
Looking at the short-term forecast, Raincouver is earning its nickname with lots of rain, but the sun does appear for Vancouver despite almost-frigid temps.
ECCC
We get close to freezing with overnight lows of 1°C next Monday.
How would you rate the weather in 2024? Let us know in the comments.