If you’re wondering what the December weather forecast for BC will look like, so are we. That’s why we contacted Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) for answers.
We spoke with Armel Castellan, the perfect man for the job. He’s ECCC’s warning preparedness meteorologist, so he knows a thing or two about forecasts and weather patterns.
Castellan told us that winter will be something of a mixed bag. Current signals show some periods of warmer weather and more typical winter weather, including snow and colder temperatures. Also, it’s important to note that when ECCC refers to winter, it means meteorological winter, which begins on December 1.
Last week, we spoke to another ECCC meteorologist, Brian Proctor. That conversation informed us that a La Nina pattern was brewing, and there have been some developments since then.
“There is a relatively high probability of seeing warmer than normal temperatures across, I would say, Western Canada,” Castellan said. He added that there’s a strong indicator that this would be the case for the first and maybe second week of December. There are more question marks for the third week of December and beyond.
Also, when we say warmer, we mean warmer than seasonal averages. However, there are signals for cooler conditions for Metro Vancouver for the latter half of winter, like in January.
“La Nina typically doesn’t have an impact on us in the mid-latitudes way up here because we’re not near the equator until around Christmas time.”
Castellan pointed out that last January was warm from start to end, but the middle of the month was “extremely cold.”
“The scales are weighted towards a cooler and, for Vancouver, wetter winter.”
He added that there’s a chance of seeing low-land snow higher than usual.
“We’re not out of atmospheric river threat. We’re certainly not out of cold Arctic outbreak threat.”
If you’re wondering how much snow we’ll get in December, it’s too early to tell. If we see snow next month, we’ll likely know in a couple of weeks. For now, it’s safe to say that December is shaping up to be warmer than usual, and precipitation or expected snow is unknown. It looks likely that winter will start warmer and end colder.