Not long after the powerful bomb cyclone that impacted the Lower Mainland earlier this week subsided, meteorologists say another storm is brewing.
Brian Proctor, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), is warning that a storm is approaching the Vancouver area tonight.
He explained another low-pressure center is developing down off the Oregon coast and is expected to track northwards through the evening into the overnight before gradually weakening Friday.
“It’s not going to be as intense as the storm we saw [earlier in the week]… But it’s definitely going to produce some more rain activity and more wind across the Greater Vancouver area through the overnight into the day tomorrow,” Proctor said. “We’ll see outflow coming down Howe Sound and maybe the Bowen Island area and sort of easterly winds south through the Fraser Valley area.”
Proctor said winds are expected to pick up tonight from east to northeast at around 30 kilometres an hour near midnight. During the day, the winds are expected to gust 60 kilometres an hour through much of the morning and throughout the day on Friday.
This will be the second storm the region has experienced this week, but Proctor assured that it is not typical to see storms come in at 24- to 48-hour intervals through November and December.
“It’s just a fairly typical pattern in terms of the frequency of the storms you’re seeing,” he said. “What’s been a little bit different about these ones has been the track the storms have taken. They sort of developed off of the Pacific Northwest coast and track northwards, as opposed to being very mature systems that come across the Gulf of Alaska and impact the Central and North Coast first before impacting the south coast.”
The good news is this upcoming storm could be the last one of a “series of impulses,” Proctor said.
According to the ECCC forecast, after the rainy weekend, the new work week is expected to start out dry with a bit of sun.
ECCC
However, temperatures are dipping fast.
“By the time we get to Monday and Tuesday or Tuesday and Wednesday, it’s going to be 5°C or 6°C for daytime highs, and the overnight lows are going to be right around the freezing mark as well,” Proctor said.
Proctor suggested that as the temperature dips further, we could be headed towards potential snowfall in the future.