Barring a miracle, a white Christmas in Vancouver isn’t looking too likely, with no snow or freezing temperatures in the weather forecast.
If you’ve been dreaming of a wet Christmas, though, good news: the Raincouver genie has answered your wishes.
Over the next week and leading up to Christmas, Vancouver will be the beneficiary of tons of rain, and tons of pain for those hoping for snow and winter weather.
We spoke to Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Derek Lee about the forecast and got some interesting historical weather information about snow in Christmases past in Vancouver.
But before we tell you what he told us, this is what the next sopping wet week looks like:
ECCC
Thankfully, the sun makes a brief appearance on Friday, but after that, it’s wet. Real wet.
We asked Lee when we might see some wintery weather, and he said, “Probably not until the end of January.”
Lee added that there’s a chance for some colder, more wintery weather between now and then, with some days dipping to zero, but there are no strong signals or indicators of that until late January. He also doesn’t expect anything crazy to happen until at least then, so you can probably breathe a sigh of relief as we won’t have any 11-hour commutes anytime soon.
“If you averaged out January, the forecast is still above normal temperatures, but probably not as warm as December.”
Looking back at Christmases over the last 10 years or so, Lee says the only time snow fell and stuck in Vancouver on a Christmas Day was in 2021.
“We did actually see snowfall in 2017 falling out of the sky, but we didn’t really see any accumulations then.”
In 2021, we saw about 2.2 centimetres on the ground.
Lee also told us that this reality of slightly warmer winters will continue thanks to the realities of global warming. A report from Climate Central supports this idea, suggesting that Canada is “losing winter days” thanks to increasingly warmer temperatures.
If the forecast bums you out, just remember that weather miracles sometimes happen, especially in a place like Vancouver, where the weather can be highly unpredictable.
Are you happy we aren’t getting a white Christmas, or does it feel like a lump of coal in your stockings?