The summer season is continuing through August, with more hot and sunny weather on the way, as well as some worries for BC’s air quality.
According to Ken Dosanjh, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, the August weather will generally start off in an above-average trend.
“It seems like a ridge of high pressure will start to build, mostly over the southern half of the province,” he told Daily Hive. “We’re looking at temperature anomalies expected to climb at least by Thursday, so right into the beginning of August, then continuing into the interior and really peaking Friday and Saturday for the interior regions.”
Dosanjh said areas like the southern and southeastern interiors will likely experience temperatures 8°C to 10°C above normal.
The meteorologist added that folks in the coastal sea area could notice that temperatures clock in at the mid-20s due to the sea breeze. However, the further away and inland you go, “you can expect temperatures around the 30°C mark, especially Friday [and] Saturday, and then kind of high 20s later into the week.”
ECCC
Areas around Castlegar and Grand Forks could expect temperatures to reach around the high 30s, around 39°C by the weekend.
While there could be a gradual drop off in temperatures early next week, “still temperatures will remain slightly elevated for the South,” Dosanjh said.
Wildfire
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Wildfire is on many British Columbians’ minds, and Dosanjh suggested it would certainly flare up in August.
“As we kind of continue into later into this week, we do start to notice the dry and trending continue as that bridge of high pressure starts to build,” he said.
Experts like Dosanjh are noticing “a bit of subtropical feed” on Friday, which allows a “weak system to pull into the southern interior.”
“That could create some possible dry lightning concerns, which could definitely elevate some of our wildfire activities,” he said.
Air quality
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As the air stagnates due to August weather conditions, the expert suggests it is worrisome.
“Pretty much as we start to see this reach of high pressure become prevalent, it’s going to stagnate the air a little bit more,” he explained. “Winds will become slightly lighter, and that would basically mean the air quality would possibly worsen as there’s no direction of where the smoke is going to go. So then we definitely do see concerns for air quality.”
Middle to end of August predictions
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Dosanjh said the general trend for the month of August is showing “subtle signals of above-normal temperatures,” especially in the southern half of the province. However, because of the fluctuating daily weather pattern, the subtle signs don’t necessarily indicate how high temperatures are expected to get or how continuous those temperatures might be.
“Our climate models are predicting there’s no statistical significance for end of August in terms of whether we can expect a higher or below-normal summer,” he said. “So that means there’s not enough concrete data to provide an accurate prediction at this point.”
Daily Hive also asked if BC is in for a longer summer, but ECCC said it is too early to tell.
Dosanjh emphasizes that long-range forecasts are based on climate models, so they are not as precise as a short-term forecast “because weather varies pretty much nonstop.”
So, to heed the caution of long-term climate charts, Dosanjh suggests keeping up with the short-term weather forecasts throughout the month.