Too soon to put away the snow shovel just yet
Forget a lamb or a lion. March has come in like a polar bear in Kelowna. In just the first five days of the month, the city has already received five centimetres of snow. That’s more than the 4.8 cm that normally falls during all of March.
And that may not be the last of it this winter.
“There could be some more flurries off and on this week,” Environment Canada meteorologist Jonathan Bau said Sunday.
“But it’ll be very localized, with heavier accumulations in some areas than others, rather than the entire region seeing equal amounts,” Bau said.
Temperatures will also be cooler than forecast just a few days ago, with highs a few degrees below the seasonal average for early March of 7 C.
“A system from the north Pacific has come through a little more strongly than we thought it would,” Bau said. “So, unfortunately, the warm air we were expecting has gone further south.”
On the bright side, at least Kelowna isn’t Coquitlam. That Lower Mainland community received 20 cm of snow in places on Sunday.
It also snowed heavily in downtown Vancouver, and Environment Canada had issued a snowfall warning for the entire South Coast.
Despite the snow in Kelowna, The Greenery, a plant and garden nursery on Dilworth Mountain, has opened for the season as scheduled.
“Business has been surprisingly good,” owner Tell Segler said. “We have a lot of colour in here, and some people have said they’ve come just to get away from the snow for a bit.”