As wildfires whip up around the country, most notably in Alberta and Nova Scotia, some here in British Columbia are concerned this summer could be a bad one for our backyard.
CityNews Meteorologist Michael Kuss is looking ahead to the summer forecast to determine what the province will see.
“Seasonal forecasting can be a crapshoot, at best. It’s hard enough to predict five to seven days into the future. But as we look into the next month anyway, we’ve already seen tinder-dry conditions, not a lot of precipitation in sight.
“The pattern is conducive for a dry start to the summer and that sets us up for a potentially really dangerous forest fire season and an active one to be sure.”
Kuss says the biggest determination for long-term forecasting, including this coming summer, is the ENSO cycle — the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
“We are transitioning from an extended period of La Niña into an El Niño pattern, but that may take all the way through the summer before we start to see the warming of those waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific when we get those warmer waters that often means drier warmer conditions along the B.C. coast,” he explained.
The region has already been experiencing some early-season extreme weather, coupled with wildfires. Just this month saw a “mini-heatwave” where temperatures in parts of the Lower Mainland reached 30 C during the day.
Kuss notes all the ingredients are in place for a drier-than-normal summer across much of the southern part of the province.
“[We’ve] already seen incredibly dry conditions with temperatures hovering near seasonal, but as we extend out over the next month, month and a half, it looks like that pattern isn’t going to change that much.
“And although precipitation will arrive it may not be enough to quench the already parched conditions across the province.”
source:CityNews photo:BC Wildfire Service
