After two months of record-breaking rainfalls, a warm and dry August enveloped the Greater Trail region for the final leg of summer.
The average high temperature was markedly higher on each day than normal, typically ranging at an average of 2.7 degrees warmer, resulting with a mean of 21 C, according to figures recently released for the region by the Southeast Fire Centre in Castlegar.
It was hot and it got hotter, said the centre’s meteorologist Ron Lakeman, thanks to a high pressure system.
“High pressure is fairly common in the month of August and it definitely dominated through this past month,” he explained. “But there are indications of an El Niño developing.”
An El Niño is a phenomenon associated with warmer than normal sea surface temperatures close to Central America and it commonly produces milder than normal temperatures during the winter months here locally, he explained.
The warmest temperature in August was a whopping 36.8 C on the afternoon of Aug. 19, nearing the region’s record high of 40 C during 1967.
And it was dry, the second driest August on record. The total rainfall was only five per cent normal for the month, a repeat of 2011 where only 3.2 millimetres of precipitation was recorded during the entire month of August.
Only 2mm of measurable rain fell in August, bested only by 1967’s record of a “trace” of precipitation. There were only two days in the last month that saw any moisture fall.
Lakeman hinted that September should also remain on the warm and dry side due to the influence of the El Niño.