A snowy Kamloops day. (Photo via Abby Zieverink)
UPDATE Jan. 18 – Environment Canada says Kamloops saw 18 centimetres of snow fall on Jan. 17, taking the cumulative total for this month to 29.1 centimetres.
ORIGINAL – Environment Canada says the City of Kamloops saw an average January’s worth of snow fall during today’s storm.
Meteorologist Lisa Erven says the 17 centimetres of snow that was recorded on the ground at Kamloops Airport as of 3 p.m., is just short of the 18.6 centimetres that falls in a typical January.
“The storm is going to start moving out of the Kamloops area in the next couple of hours, so its a little bit hard to say exactly just how much is left,” Erven said.
“We might add a few centimetres onto what has already fallen, but we will have to wait until the storm finally departs before we come up with that final storm total for today.”
Wednesday’s storm did not break the daily record for Jan. 17, which was set in 1929 when Kamloops saw 21.6 centimetres of snow fall. The all-time record for a January day was set on Jan. 7, 1962, when 33.8 centimetres of snow fell in Kamloops.
Erven says the City of Kamloops has already seen 28.1 centimetres of snow this January with more on the way this Thursday and Friday.
“We’re definitely into an active weather pattern and with the cold temperatures thanks to that arctic outbreak we had last week, it means that precipitation falling from the storms over the Interior is falling as snow,” Erwen said.
“So we’re going to see those monthly snowfall numbers continue to bump up.”
And while the snowy January will help bolster low snowpacks in B.C., Erven says it is too soon to know if it will help decrease the risk of drought this summer. It comes as 2023 was driest and warmest year on record for Kamloops, with records going back to 1897.
“Essentially dating back to summer 2022, we’ve seen fairly low precipitation numbers across the province,” Erven said.
“Yes, its a good thing that we’re starting to see some elevated precipitation numbers but its going to take some time for us catch up to what we’ve been essentially missing.”
