It was the frostiest February Chilliwack has seen in more than a century.
West Coast residents including Chilliwackians have been shivering under a prolonged cold front that arrived when the Arctic winds blew in last month, and then persisted with several snowstorms.
Data recorded in Chilliwack last month by Roger Pannett, volunteer weather observer for Environment Canada, shows the month of February 2019 kicked off mild and wet across southern B.C. before the mercury tumbled to a low of -10.2 degrees Celsius on Feb. 10.
READ MORE: Snowstorm to hit hard
Temperatures peaked at 8.5 degrees C for the month in Chilliwack, which was 3.2 degrees above normal.
“After the previous three mild months with temperatures a bit above normal, on Feb. 2 the Polar vortex over central Canada retrograded westwards,” and that’s when winter blew furiously into the Fraser Valley.
On Feb. 3, the Arctic front travelled south.
“That Arctic blast brought the first of five bouts of snowfalls but with only 0.6 cm in Chilliwack, compared to up to 8 cm in Abbotsford, coupled with some white out condition,” Pannett reported.
On Feb. 10, temperatures plummeted to the low for the month at -10.2 degrees with a wind chill of - 22 degrees. With temperatures not rising above -5.2 degrees, 11.1 below normal, it was the coldest Feb. 4 since the -5.6 in 1899.
For the remainder of the month, with the jet stream sticking to the south in the U.S, cold Arctic air remained entrenched over western Canada. On Feb. 8 and Feb. 9 cold outflow north east winds, exceeding more than 60 km/hour at times, resulted in some top soil wind erosion in the Sumas Prairie.
Only one cold temperature record occurred, on Feb. 10, with a mean temperature at -6.4 C (10.3°C below normal) exceeding the previous low mean of – 5.9°C in 1933. Then from Feb 10-12 southern B.C. experienced a heavy snowfall as moist Pacific air clashed with the cold Arctic air mass. Snowfall totals in Chilliwack amounted to 41.2 cm.
Despite the snowfall, the total precipitation for the month was 53.3 per cent below normal, the driest February in 10 years.
After the longest killing-frost-free period on record at 343 days, from Feb. 3 a record 25 frosts occurred, exceeding the 22 frosts in February 1989.
The prolonged cold snap with mean temperatures -0.33, which was 5.03 degrees below normal, confirmed it was the coldest February in over 123 years in Chilliwack and the coldest month since the -0.75 degrees mean during the great blizzard month of December 1996.
@CHWKjourno
jfeinberg@theprogress.com
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