B.C. set to pack on the powder at elevation, first snowstorm ahead
A prominent temperature disparity will form over B.C. and significant snowfall will accumulate in some high-elevation areas.
It's only early October, but the atmosphere doesn't care. Instead, it's pulling out the early November playbook.
An impressive cold upper trough near Alaska will slide over most of the province while extreme southeast B.C. gets some ridge leftovers from the Prairies until Wednesday. This means it’s going to snow a lot across northern British Columbia.
TUESDAY
This low has no plans of moving quickly, so it’ll stick around Vancouver Island through Tuesday and Wednesday, spreading periods of rain across the South Coast.
The windstorm threat is low this week, but we're kicking off where we left in September. The heaviest rainfall totals are in the usual suspect areas, but by no means is this an atmospheric river. Here's a map, but better still -- fire up The Weather Network app for local details.
On Tuesday, that'll be a healthy swath of snow north of Prince George, impacting Highway 97 and the Yellowhead. We'll see if Prince George mixes in some snowflakes, but here's a warning: Cities like Fort St. John, but more so, Dawson Creek could overachieve big time with these early-season snowfall events.
As this is the first significant snowfall for the B.C. Peace River region, Environment Canada issued a special weather statement in advance of the impending snowfall, targeting higher terrain along Highway 97 where more than 15 cm will likely fall through Wednesday morning.
It's a different season in the south on Tuesday -- check out these temperatures speckling southeastern B.C., and the impressive heat in southern Alberta:
THURSDAY TO SATURDAY
Conditions will settle down by the end of the week. The upper trough is lurking still, and the northwest flow is certainly a chilly one for early October.
By the weekend, another cold low moves in from the Gulf of Alaska, and it'll threaten to drop the freezing level below 1200 metres in October. Impressive stuff, atmosphere.