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Vancouver received 34 cm of snowfall in five days

If you felt like Vancouver received an unusual amount of snow for January, you aren't alone. The city saw some snowflakes on Boxing Day, but none of the snow was really sticking to the ground at lower elevations in December.
snow
Photo Dan Toulgoet

If you felt like Vancouver received an unusual amount of snow for January, you aren't alone. 

The city saw some snowflakes on Boxing Day, but none of the snow was really sticking to the ground at lower elevations in December. And while there wasn't any snowfall in the first week of the new year, cold arctic air from the B.C. Interior began to make its way to the south coast. Once it arrived, it provided the best snow-making conditions of the winter season thus far. 

In addition to ideal snow-making conditions, the cold arctic air brought some chilling lows. In fact, the Vancouver saw temperatures dip down to minus seven or lower, with the wind chill factor making temperatures feel decidedly frigid. 

Vancouver Is Awesome spoke to Bobby Sekhon, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, about how much snowfall Vancouver received in the past week, as well as what locals can expect in the weeks to come.

"We are behind last night's system, but we have a lot of unstable air in the area," he explained Thursday. "The bands of snow are now over Abbotsford, but there is still some unstable cold air left behind."

Sekhon noted that convective cells are difficult to predict, and that there has even been a couple of lightning strikes on the south coast. He added, however, that the cold weather is making its way out of the Lower Mainland, with several days of rain in the forecast.

When asked if the Lower Mainland would get hit with another chilly, snowy February, Sekhon couldn't say for sure. With this in mind, he notes that mid-range models through the end of January are showing fairly average temperatures. 

According to Sekhon, Vancouver International Airport received 34 centimetres of snowfall between Jan. 10 and 15. To put that in perspective, he reports that YVR only saw a trace amount of snowfall in January 2019. So, while the average snowfall amount for the month is 11 centimetres, he notes that this figure doesn't tell the full story. 

"That number is an average of all the months. It doesn't show the differences in years."

Read the original article here.