Metro’s winter was wet, chilly, but not coldest, experts say

Metro Vancouver’s winter this year, the season that never seemed to end, still had a long way to go to enter record books as the coldest ever.

Vancouver International Airport recorded an average temperature between December and February of 2.2 C, a full two degrees below the 4.2 C-degree normal, according to Matt MacDonald of Environment Canada.

“When you get an average over three months of two degrees lower than normal, that’s significant,” he said.

Spring is still officially a week away, but meteorologists consider winter to span the months of December, January and February.

This winter was the coldest on average since 1992-93, when the average was 1.7 C, and the 10th-coldest since records were first kept in 1937. The coldest winter was 1949-50, with an average of -0.2 C, followed by 1948-49 (0.3 C); 1968-69 (0.4 C); 1936-37 (0.7 C); 1992-93 and 1956-57 (tied at 1.7 C); 1971-72 and 1984-85 (tied at 1.8 C); and 1978-79 (2 C).

The forecast for the rest of the week is for rain with near-normal temperatures of 10 C, with one or two degrees higher today and Wednesday.

After the “relentlessly cold” winter, “it feels unusually mild, but this is just normal,” said MacDonald.

“No major storms on the horizon this week,” he said. “We’re pretty much done for snow” except for on ski hills and at higher elevations.

A “more typical southwesterly flow” has returned after the “very unstable” northwesterly flow that caused the cold temperatures.

B.C.’s River Forest Centre, in its latest snow survey and water supply bulletin for February, found there were “wetter conditions in the South Coast, South Interior and Kootenay,” and drier conditions in the north coast and westcentral areas of B.C. Everywhere else was normal.

“Seasonally dry conditions have resulted in lower than normal snowpack at high elevations, despite the (winter’s) colder conditions,” according to the bulletin.

But the higher-than-normal levels at low elevations isn’t expected to increase flood risks or affect water supply into spring and summer.

Business at the GardenWorks stores has been “a little slower this year, but not a lot,” said the chain’s plant expert Scott Pearce.

He said the previous two springs were “very early,” while this spring is probably coming in on time. That means it’s time to prune, clean and prepare, but not yet to plant.