By Kate Bouey

Warm and wet December

Jan 3, 2020 | 6:00 AM

It was a very wet and warm December in the North Okanagan.

Environment Canada figures showed the Vernon area received 93.3 millimetres of precipitation in the form of snow and rain over the month, 89 percent higher than usual.

“The normal precipitation is 49.4 millimetres…so 89 percent above normal,” meteorologist Bobby Sekhon told Vernon Matters. “That ranked as the fifth wettest December on record, with records for precipitation going back to 1903.”

The big number is due in part to a snowstorm that walloped the North Okanagan on New Year’s Eve day dropping 30.7 millimetres of precipitation.

“We can see that almost one-third of the precipitation came in the last day of the month,” said Sekhon.

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Although there were a few Arctic days at the beginning of December, Sekhon also said it was unusually mild when compared to statistics from between 1981 and 2010.

“We were warmer than normal,” said Sekhon. “The average mean temperature for December was -1.5 degree Celcius and the normal mean temperature is usually -4.4 degrees Celcius.”

While that appears to be quite a hike in heat, Sekhon said December 2019 in Vernon was only the thirtieth warmest December on record.

by Kate Bouey

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