Halloween fireworks may have sent October out with a loud bang, but it couldn’t have been a less spectacular month.
“October 2020 started off as the last gasp of summer, but the outlook for dry weather to continue for the rest of the month across the Chemainus Valley failed to materialize,” noted Chris Carss, a volunteer weather observer/recorder for Environment Canada at his Chemainus home.
“We ended up with a largely normal fall month that was just a little less wet than usual. The total accumulated rainfall was only about three millimetres below normal, and the total number of days with rainfall was just a little below normal.
“There were several heavy downpours of rain in October, but nothing that was abnormal or record setting. The temperatures and sunshine were also near normal for October.
Breaking down the numbers, the mean maximum temperature of 14.2 Celsius came in right at the normal of 14.1 C, with the mean minimum temperature of 8.2 C being slightly above the normal of 7.4 C.
The extreme maximum temperature of 22 C occurred on Oct. 2. The extreme minimum of 0 C fell on Oct. 25.
There were 11 days of mostly or partly sunny conditions, one less than the normal of 12. Of the 20 mostly cloudy days, 13 had rainfall, just short of the normal of 15 days with rain.
Total rainfall of 130.4 mm matched up closely to the normal of 133.6 mm.
On Thetis Island, Keith Rush recorded 103.6 mm of precipitation this October at his Foster Point Road residence. That was slightly higher than the 91.8 mm total from October of 2019 but below the average October of 113.2 mm.
There’s been 876.9 mm of precipitation this year on Thetis, substantially above the 600.9 mm mark to this point in 2019. The average year to date amount of precipitation on Thetis is 698.2 mm.
“November looks like it will follow a similar pattern as October,” Carss pointed out. “The month started off mostly sunny and dry, but wet weather is now returning. November usually brings more rain than October, but current outlooks indicate the rain may be less frequent and less heavy than normal.
“But we all know what happened in October, so the advice coming from most weather watchers, both professional and volunteer, is to keep your umbrellas nearby for November, and likely December and into the new year.”
