Three days into the November and the Trail area already had its first taste of winter.
Snow is not unheard of this time of year, but local forecaster Ron Lakeman says colder than norm temperatures could have the white stuff lingering longer than what is typical so early in the month.
“What’s going to happen in the next 24 hours is a little unique for this time of year,” Lakeman told the Trail Times Thursday morning. “In that it can snow in early November, but it just looks like this could actually accumulate to a certain degree in the valleys,” he added.
“More commonly this time of year we’ll get some wet snow that does accumulate but melts off quite quickly, whereas we could actually see 10 centimetres (cm) or more in the valleys here by Friday morning.”
Looking toward the weekend, the forecast is a little more uncertain.
“The general idea as far as the weekend goes, is still a chance of a few flurries,” Lakeman said. “It looks a little unsettled, the sun could come out too, so cloudy with sunny breaks and a slight chance of flurries.”
Notably, day time temperatures will remain cooler with a high of two degrees, instead of the more typical 7 C.
Overnight lows are expected to dip to - 6 C.
“Sunday may be more of the same, cloudy with sunny breaks and a chance of some flurries,” Lakeman said.
By Monday the conditions may flip though the nights are predicted to remain colder than typical.
“Right now (Monday) looks like a fairly sunny day with cloudy periods,” he concluded. “It might get up to plus-two but it’ll still be cool at night.”
Over the next few days, 20 to 30 cm of snow is forecast to fall at higher elevations across the south end of the region.
Early snowfall follows a month of higher than normal rain.
According to Lakeman’s October weather report, almost 60 millimetres of rain fell and less than one cm of snow. The usual October average is less than 50 cm of rain and almost 2 cm of snow.
The warmest day neared 19 C on Oct. 5, but didn’t near the record 27 C, set on Oct. 7 back in 1980.
A new daily low, - 2.4 C, was set Oct. 9.
The mean monthly temperature for October was slightly cooler (7.6 C) compared to the normal 8 C, which Lakeman chalked up to cooler than average overnight values.
However, October was the first month since May wherein the area experienced slightly higher than normal precipitation.