Environment Canada says three communities in the Kamloops area set new temperature records over the weekend.

Those include Merritt and Cache Creek, as well as Clearwater.

Environment Canada Meteorologist Derek Lee says Merritt experienced highs of 20 on Saturday and 23.2 degrees on Sunday, breaking records set in 1985 and 1972, respectively.

“Overall, from what I’ve seen in the Thompson Nicola Region, the Merritt area had the highest temperatures recorded.”

He says Clearwater also broke its records on both days, including a 16.7 degree threshold set in 1941 after Saturday’s temperature reached 19.7 degrees.

Clearwater also broke a 109-year reigning record of 18.3 degrees set in 1915 with temperatures that reached 20.6 degrees on Sunday.

Lee says in Cache Creek temperature records from 1947 were broken on both Saturday and Sunday.

“For Cache Creek on Saturday, we did see it go up to 19.9 degrees, and it beat the record of 17.2 degrees previously, and for Sunday, the Cache Creek area had a new record of 21 degrees and the previous one was 20.6 degrees.”

As for Kamloops, Lee says the community came up a couple of degrees short of setting a new temperature record over the weekend.

“For Kamloops itself, we did have observations of it getting 18.5 degrees for both Saturday and Sunday the past weekend and to break a record for the Kamloops area it would have been 20 degrees.”

Lee explains the balmy weather over the weekend caused dozens of communities across the province to break temperature records.

“That was caused by a ridge of high pressure that was continually building on the weekend and into this week, and ridges of high pressure generally are the ones that give us our sunny skies, warm weather, and springtime.”

However, he says these record-breaking temperatures aren’t expected to continue for too much longer.

“By Wednesday, we do have a more active weather pattern coming in from the Pacific, with showers and more cloud coverage coming back into our forecast, and with that cloud cover, we won’t get as warm, and temperatures will head closer back to normal with a high of around 10 degrees, moving away from the heat.”

Agassiz, B.C., broke its 124-year-old record of 22.8 C set in 1900 with temperatures that reached 23.3 C on Saturday.

Other locations that broke records with temperatures that reached at least 20 C included Abbotsford, Bella Bella, Bella Coola, Hope, Lytton, Pemberton, Pitt Meadows, Princeton, and Squamish.

(With files from the Canadian Press)