With 36 mm of rain in July, it was the first time since February of this year, where the Kamloops area saw above normal rainfall in a calendar month.

Environment Canada meteorologist Matt MacDonald says July normally sees about 31 mm of rain. The record was set in 1912 when 89 mm of rain fell, meaning July 2019 is the 30th wettest on record.

“You know after this prolonged dry stretch it was definitely good to get some healthy rainfall amounts, but you know this drought does continue so keep in mind if you are going camping this weekend, be vigilant with respect to campfires and what not, making sure they are extinguished,” MacDonald said.

He says there was a record number of lightning strikes across the province last month.

“Three times the normal amount of lightning strikes in fact,” MacDonald noted. “Luckily the majority of that lightning was accompanied by rain so not much in the way of dry lightning or wildfire starts.”

Over 85 per cent of last months’s rainfall in Kamloops fells on July 4, 5, and the 18th.

“You know during the summer months, a lot of our precipitation comes from thunderstorms and they tend to be very spotty,” MacDonald said. “During the summer months, a lot of those thunderstorms remain confined to the ridge-tops and we hard time getting the rain into the valley.”

“Typically, in the second half of July, we see these big ridges of pressure coming into the area giving way to long sunny periods, but that wasn’t the case this July.”

On the temperature front, July 2019 was also about 0.7 C cooler than the July average of 21.5 C.