Got a complaint about the weather? In fact, no you don’t

Cool weather is the hot topic during coffee breaks these days in Vancouver. Who’s surprised? Summer officially arrives soon – June 20 at 4: 09 p. m. PDT, to be exact — and as some wag once gently chided ( the saying has been variously attributed to Will Rogers, Mark Twain, one of Twain’s pals, and a sasquatch overheard on his cellphone complaining to a yeti about the abominable spring skiing), the thing about the weather is that everybody talks about it, but nobody ever does anything about it.

In Vancouver, that’s likely because most of us don’t seem to know what we’re snivelling about in the first place, popular as the subject of lousy weather may be in café society, both polite and impolite.

Here’s the thing. That wet, cool spring that everybody’s been complaining about? It wasn’t. Either overly wet or exceptionally cool, that is. Sorry to be the bearer of deflating news when it comes to those old, familiar gripefests at the water cooler, but May was actually quite a bit drier than normal.

Yep, Environment Canada’s meteorologists confirm what Coast Rats of a certain age already noted. We got about 37- per- cent less rain in May than we usually do ( 42.8 millimetres compared to the historic average of 67.9). And while it was a tad cooler than normal, the differences were so slight that even the loudest grumblers didn’t notice — unless they’ve had some kind of temperature sensor implants that haven’t hit the general body- piercing market yet.

The daily highs in May averaged only 0.4 degrees less than the seasonal average and by night the lows deviated from normal by even less — on average our nights were only 0.1 degrees cooler than usual.

If you want something to whine about, try these facts. For sunniest springs, Vancouver trails Yellowknife by 38 places in the national rankings and precisely ditto for the sunniest summers. But you might not want to pack up for that move North of 60 just yet. It turns out that sunny doesn’t equate with warm.

Yellowknife’s oh- so- sunny springs are also the most frigid in the country — average temperature minus 28.9

Here’s the thing. That wet, cool spring that everybody’s been complaining about? It wasn’t. Either overly wet or exceptionally cool, that is.

degrees, which is, like, twice as cold as the coldest day in Vancouver since the woolly mammoths roamed Granville Street during the last Ice Age. Followed by a summer populated with blood- sucking mosquitoes the size of giant condors. By comparison, out of the 100 Canadian cities ranked by Environment Canada, only one place has a warmer spring than us. That would be Victoria, and the difference there can be attributed to the hot air factory known as the provincial legislature. Besides, our mosquitoes are tiny, cute and probably vegan.

Vancouver ranks fourth overall for the warmest spring ever, bumped only by Chilliwack, Abbotsford and Kamloops, so not bad.

True, we do get some rain in the winter. But Prince Rupert, Port Alberni, Chilliwack, Campbell River, Halifax, Sydney and St. John’s all outrank us on the rainiest- location map. Medicine Hat gets the most dry days, but then, dare we point out that the wind from the dusty prairie never stops blowing and what Vancouver stylista would be caught trying to strain a skinny mocha latte with sprinkles through a red- and- white bandana while wearing a safety goggles, a 10- gallon hat and lizard- skin boots?

Nope, the truth is, the weather’s pretty darn good right where you are — and Environment Canada says June is going to be drier and warmer than normal, too. Just in time for summer. Which means July and August are on the way — and they’ll be even drier and warmer than June. So quit yer complainin’ or we’ll give you a bus ticket to Yellowknife and you can tell ’ em over your Labrador Tea how wretched life was in Lotus Land.