It’ll be a cold election day in Kelowna

Environment Canada predicts record low in valley Oct. 24

Election day is shaping up to be the coldest Oct. 24 in Okanagan history.

After the polls close at 8 p.m., temperatures are forecast to drop to minus 6 C in Kelowna, Penticton, and Vernon.

That would make it the coldest Oct. 24 in records that go back for the Okanagan to 1941.

“There’s a modified Arctic front moving through, but don’t freak out,” Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist said Tuesday. “The cold weather isn’t going to last too long.”

Conditions will begin to warm up by Tuesday and, toward the end of next week and into early November, seasonal temperatures in the low double digits are likely, Lundquist said.

An Arctic outflow into the Okanagan in late October isn’t all that unusual, Lundquist said, suggesting it happens about once every four years and is more common around Halloween.

Temperatures usually recover, as they will next week when a high pressure ridge reforms accompanied by mainly sunny skies.

The average high so far this month in Kelowna has been 16.6 C, three degrees above normal for October, following a record warm September. Overnight lows this month, at an average of 7 C, have been five degrees warmer than usual.

“We had a summer that sort of stretched right into October,” Lundquist said.

Before the temperatures plunge to record lows on Saturday, flurries are forecast for Thursday and wet snow is predicted for Friday, with highs both day around 4.

Snow in October, in Kelowna, is rare. Longterm records show just one millimetre of snow usually in the month but 29 mm of rain.

October is the third rainiest month in Kelowna, after May and June.