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More rain on the way for Silver City Days

The wildest ride this first week of May could be the unpredictable weather patterns.
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The West Coast Amusements fleet of trucks rolled into Trail on Monday and was greeted by a community still drenched from the weekend’s 20-millimetre downpour that had city crews out clearing clogged sewer lines on Monday.

The wildest ride this first week of May could be the unpredictable weather patterns.

After a record high of almost 28 C on Friday to a major downpour that brought a cooler than usual temperature of 11 C on Sunday, roller coaster conditions are expected to continue throughout Silver City celebrations this week.

“The snow level has come down the mountain and it was definitely cooler than normal over the weekend,” said Ron Lakeman, forecaster at the Southeast Fire Centre. “We are looking at unsettled conditions and rain showers but the coming weekend is still a bit up in the air.”

A mix of sun and clouds with temperatures trending mild and more seasonal are expected until Thursday evening, when another band of rain showers could roll into the area along with cooler temperatures of about 12 C.

Skies are predicted to clear for Saturday’s Silver City parade, but a 40 to 60 per cent chance of rain is forecast for later that day and on Sunday, according to Lakeman.

Warm and drier conditions should be back in the picture next week, he added.

If April showers bring May flowers, the area should be in full blossom pretty soon because the month had more rain than usual.

No snow was recorded at the centre’s Castlegar location during the month, but downpours led to almost 64 millimetres (mm) of precipitation compared to the usual 57 mm, but did not top 105 mm of mixed snow and rain recorded in 1996.

“April was slightly wetter and slightly cooler that typical,” he said.

The total rainfall was 107 per cent of normal and the average monthly temperature was 0.3 C cooler than normal, he added.

During the initial half of the month, weak disturbances skirted the area with gusty winds but very little rain, Lakeman noted.

“A more active Pacific storm cycle resulted in far more frequent amounts of rain during the second half of the month,” he said.

Thirteen of 16 days of measurable rain was recorded during this time, with the most significant downfall, almost 18 mm, recorded the evening of April 17.

During the first two weeks of April, the region was sun soaked with near high record temperatures of 21 C recorded on April 7 and 22.6 recorded on April 8 compared to the all-time high temperature of 28 C recorded in 1980.

No records were broken during the month, but a hint of summer shone through during the final two days, and brought the warmest day on April 30, and a temperature of almost 25 degrees.



Sheri Regnier

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