A rainy start to summer in the Williams Lake area is due to June rains being delayed.
Environment Canada meteorologist Bobby Sekhon said June is normally the wettest month of the year in the Cariboo, but the cold low fronts that normally bring June rains have been delayed about two to three weeks.
“It’s kind of like everything’s been shifted,” Sekhon told the Tribune Monday.
“In June, Quesnel only received 26 per cent of their normal precipitation. Apart from one day, Quesnel and Williams Lake had pretty similar precipitation totals, however, on the 28th of June there was some thunderstorm activity near Williams Lake and it gave about 23 mm of precipitation that day and that kicked Williams Lake into the normal category for the month.”
Sekhon said it was a dry spring and a dry June, until the recent rains have brought things back up to normal in the last couple of weeks.
“We had built up a precipitation deficit, so it’s been kind of a good news, bad news story.”
The Environment Canada forecast for the week is for highs in the low 20s, with chance of showers or thunderstorms Monday and chance of showers through the rest of the week.
“July, from what we are seeing so far, may be close to below normal temperatures into the third week of July, but that being said, we had a pretty normal June temperature-wise for Quesnel and Williams Lake,” Sekhon said. “We’ll see what August has in store for us.”
So far this month 42.1 mm of rain fell in Williams Lake, with 16.3 mm falling on Saturday, July 6 alone. In April the total amount of precipitation was 24.5 mm, in May it was 34.2 mm and in June it was 57.3 mm.
In 2016, the Williams Lake area received 70 mm of rain in the month of July. In 2017 there was zero precipitation and there were wildfires and in 2018, there was a total rain amount of 27.2 mm.
Read more: Playing the waiting game
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